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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
BISHOP JOHN C. KILGO 





PRESENTED TO 


DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
BY 
HIS CHILDREN 





1946 












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THE ACTS 
OF THE APOSTLES 


CHAPTER XIII. TO END 


BY 


ALEXANDER MACLAREN 


D.D., Lirt.D. 


NEW YORK 
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 
3 & 5 WEST EIGHTEENTH STREET 
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MCMVIII 





CONTE 


NTS 


To THE REcGiIons BEyonD (Acts xiii. 1-18) . 


Way Savi BECAME Pavt (Acts xiii.9) 


JouN Mark (Acts xiii. 13) , 


THE First PREACHING In Asta Minor (Acts xiii. 26-39) . 


LuTHER—A STONE ON THE CAIRN (Acts xiii. 36, 37) 


REJECTERS AND RECEIVERS (Acts xiii. 4452; xiv. 1-7) a 


UNwWoRTHY OF LiFe (Acts xiii. 46) 


‘FULL oF THE Hoty Guost’ (Acts xiii, 52) 


DEIFIED AND STONED (Acts xiv. 11-22) . 


DREAM AND REALiITy (Acts xiv. 11) 


‘THE Door oF FaiTH’ (Acts xiv. 27) . 


THE BREAKING OUT oF DiscorD (Acts xv, 1-6) 


PAGE 


72 


79 


vi ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 


PAGE 
THE CHARTER OF GENTILE LIBERTY (Acts xv. 12-29) . 88 
A Goop Man’s Fautts (Acts xv. 37,38). . » 91 


How To SECURE A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE (Acts xvi.10,11) 97 
PavL aT Pariipri (Acts xvi. 13, R.V.) . . - 10 


THE Riot aT PuivippPi (Acts xvi. 19-34). : . ie 


THE GREAT QUESTION AND THE PLAIN ANSWER (Acts 


xvi. 30, 31) ‘ ‘ ° - ° . 122 
THESSALONICA AND BEREA (Acts xvii. 1-12) . - Bi 
Pav at ATHENS (Acts xvii. 22-34) . : : . 
THE MAN wWHo Is Jupesr (Acts xvii. 31). ; - 145 
Pav at CorintH (Acts xviii. 1-11). . . - 148 
‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WoRD’ (Acts xviii. 5) . - 155 
GaLuio (Acts xviii. 14,15) . e e e o 1G 
Two-FRUITFUL YEARS (Acts xix. 1-12) ° . - 168 
Woutp-BE Exorcists (Acts xix. 15) . . » 1% 


Toe FicHt with WILD Beasts aT EpHesus (Acts xix. 


21 -34) . e . . . . * 180 


CONTENTS Vii 


PAGE 


PartTiIne CouNsELs (Acts xx. 22-35) . . : - 187 
A FULFILLED ASPIRATION (Acts xx. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 7) ~ 194 
Partine Worps (Acts xx. 32) . : : - 208 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING (Acts xx. 35) : - 212 
Drawine NEARER TO THE Storm (Acts xxi. 1-15) . . 215 
PHILIP THE EVANGELIST (Acts xxi. 8) . . . 222 
An Oxp DiscipLe (Acts xxi.16)  . . . e 231 
PAUL IN THE TEMPLE (Acts xxi. 27-39) . : - 240 
PavL on His Own Conversion (Acts xxii. 6-16) . » 246 
Rome Protects Pav (Acts xxii. 17-30) . . - 21 
Curist’s WITNESSES (Acts xxiii. 11) e . - 257 
A Prot DETECTED (Acts xxiii. 12-22) . : . . 267 
A Loyat TRIBUTE (Acts xxiv. 2, 3). : . - 272 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX (Acts xxiv. 10-25) . . » 281 
FELIX BEFORE Pavut (Acts xxiv. 25) : . - 287 
Curist’s REMONSTRANCES (Acts xxvi. 14) . ; . 298 
FalTH IN Curist (Acts xxvi. 18). : . - 308 











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vii | ACTS OF THE APOS 


4. 





) ‘ BEFORE Govennons anp Krxos* (Acts xxvi. 10. , 
: . “Tae HEAVENLY Vis10n’ (Acts xxvi.19) . : 
1 ‘Mz A OgRIsTIAN!’ (Acts xxvi. 28) ay 

y TemPEsT AND Trust (Acts xxvii. 13-26) . 

| ‘ A SHorT CONFESSION i? Fairs (Acts xxvii. 23) 
i fas: 


, 





A Toran Wrrox, ALL Hanns Savep (Acts xxvii, 
’ s 


es AFTER THE WRECK (Acts xxviii. 1-16) . 
THE Last GLIMPsE oF Pavt (Acts xxviii. 17-31), 


Pavi In Rome (Acts xxviii. 30, 31). . 





TO THE REGIONS BEYOND 


‘Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and 
teachers; asiBarnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, 
and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul, 
2. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me 
Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. 3. And when 
they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. 
4, So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from 
thence they sailed to Cyprus. 5. And when they were at Salamis, they preached 
the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they had also John to their 
minister. 6. And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found 
a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: 7. Which 
was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called 
for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. 8. But Elymas the 
sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn 
away the deputy from the faith. 9. Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled 
with the Holy Ghost, set his eyeson him, 10. And said, O full of all subtilty and 
all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not 
cease to pervert the right ways ofthe Lord? 11. And now, behold, the hand of 
the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. 
And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about 
seeking some to lead him by the hand. 12. Then the deputy, when he saw what 
was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. 13. Now when 
Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: 
and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.’—AcTS xiii. 1-13. 


WE stand in this passage at the beginning of a great 
step forward. Philip and Peter had each played a part 
in the gradual expansion of the church beyond the 
limits of Judaism, but it was from the church at 
Antioch that the messengers went forth who completed 
the process. Both its locality and its composition made 
that natural. 

I. The solemn designation of the missionaries is the 
first point in the narrative. The church at Antioch 
was not left without signs of Christ's grace and pres- 
ence. It had its band of ‘prophets and teachers.’ 
As might be expected, four of the five named are 

VOL. II. A 


: ne 


2 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx.xm. 


Hellenists,—that is, Jews born in Gentile lands, and 
speaking Gentile languages. Barnabas was a Oypriote, 
Simeon’s byname of Niger (‘Black’) was probably 
given because of his dark complexion, which was 
probably caused by his birthin warmer lands. He may | 
have been a North African, as Lucius of Cyrene was. 
Saul was from Tarsus, and only Manaen remains. to 
represent the pure Palestinian Jew. His had been a 
strange course, from being foster-brother of the Herod 
who killed John to becoming a teacher in the churehat _ 
Antioch. Barnabas was the leader of the little group, 
and the younger Pharisee from Tarsus, who had all © 
along been Barnabas’s protégé, brought up the rear. 

The order observed in the list is a little window 
which shows a great deal. The first and last names 
all the world knows; the other three are never heard 
of again. Immortality falls on the two, oblivion 
swallows up the three. But it matters little whether 
our names are sounded in men’s ears, if they are in 
the Lamb’s book of life. 

These five brethren were waiting on the Lord by 
fasting and prayer. Apparently they had reason to 
expect some divine communication, for which they 
were thus preparing themselves. Light will come to 
those who thus seek it. They were commanded to set | 
apart two of their number for ‘the work whereunto 
I have called them.’ That work is not specified, and 
yet the two, like carrier pigeons on being let loose, 
make straight for their line of flight, and know exactly 
whither they are to go. 

If we strictly interpret Luke’s words (‘I have called 
them’), a previous intimation from the Spirit had 
revealed to them the sphere of their work. In that 
case, the separation was only the recognition by the 





ys. 1-13] TO THE REGIONS BEYOND 3 


brethren of the divine appointment. The inward call 
must come first, and no ecclesiastical designation can 
do more thanconfirm that. But the solemn designation 
by the Church identifies those who remain behind with 
the work of those who go forth; it throws respon- 
sibility for sympathy and support on the former, and 
it ministers strength and the sense of companionship 
to the latter, besides checking that tendency to isolation 
which accompanies earnestness. To go forth on even 
Christian service, unrecognised by the brethren, is not 
good for even a Paul. 

But although Luke speaks of the Church sending 
them away, he takes care immediately to add that it 
was the Holy Ghost who ‘sent them forth. Ramsay 
suggests that ‘sent them away’ is not the meaning of 
the phrase in verse 3, but that it should be rendered 
‘gave them leave to depart.’ In any case, a clear 
distinction is drawn between the action of the Church 
and that of the Spirit, which constituted Paul’s real 
commission as an Apostle. He himself says that he 
was an Apostle, ‘not from men, neither through man.’ 

IL. The events in the first stage of the journey are 
next summarily presented. Note the local colouring 
in ‘ went down to Seleucia, the seaport of Antioch, at 
the mouth of the river. The missionaries were 
naturally led to begin at Cyprus, as Barnabas’s birth- 
place, and that of some of the founders of the church 
at Antioch. 

So, for the first time, the Gospel went to sea, the 
precursor of so many voyages. It was an ‘epoch- 


_ making moment’ when that ship dropped down with 


the tide and put out to sea. Salamis was the nearest 


_ port on the south-eastern coast of Cyprus, and there they 
_landed,—Barnabas, no doubt, familiar with all he saw; 





4 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx.xmq 


Saul probably a stranger to it all. Their plan of action 
was that to which Paul adhered in all his after work,— 
to carry the Gospel to the Jew first, a proceeding for 
which the manner of worship in the synagogues gave 
facilities. No doubt, many such were scattered through 
Cyprus, and Barnabas would be well known in 
most. 

They thus traversed the island from east to west. 
It is noteworthy that only now is John Mark's name 
brought in as their attendant. He had come with 
them from Antioch, but Luke will not mention him 
when he is telling of the sending forth of the other 
two, because Mark was not sent by the Spirit, but only 
chosen by his uncle, and his subsequent defection did 
not affect the completeness of their embassy. His 
entirely subordinate place is made obvious by the 
point at which he appears. 

Nothing of moment happened on the tour till Paphos 
was reached. That was the capital, the residence of 
the pro-consul, and the seat of the foul worship of 
Venus. There the first antagonist was met. It is not 
Sergius Paulus, pro-consul though he was, who is the 
central figure of interest to Luke, but the sorcerer who 
was attached to his train. His character is drawn in 
Luke’s description, and in Paul’s fiery exclamation. 
Each has three clauses, which fall ‘like the beats of 
a hammer. ‘Sorcerer, false prophet, Jew, make a 
climax of wickedness. That a Jew should descend to 
dabble in the black art of magic, and play tricks on 
the credulity of ignorant people by his knowledge of 
some simple secrets of chemistry; that he should 
pretend to prophetic gifts which in his heart he knew 
to be fraud, and should be recreant to his ancestral 
faith, proved him to deserve the penetrating sentence 


vs. 1-13] TO THE REGIONS BEYOND 5 


which Paul passed on him. He was a trickster, and 
knew that he was: his inspiration came from an evil 
source; he had come to hate righteousness of every 
sort. 

Paul was not flinging bitter words at random, or 
yielding to passion, but was laying the black heart 
bare to the man’s own eyes, that the seeing himself as 
God saw him might startle him into penitence. ‘The 
corruption of the best is the worst. The bitterest 
enemies of God’s ways are those who have cast aside 
their early faith. A Jew who had stooped to be a 
juggler was indeed causing God’s ‘name to be blas- 
phemed among the Gentiles.’ 

He and Paul each recognised in the other his most 
formidable foe. Elymas instinctively felt that the 
pro-consul must be kept from listening to the teaching 
of these two fellow-countrymen, and ‘sought to per- 
vert him from the faith, therein perverting (the same 
word is used in both cases) ‘the right ways of the 
Lord’; that is, opposing the divine purpose. He was 
a specimen of a class who attained influence in that 
epoch of unrest, when the more cultivated and nobler 
part of Roman society had lost faith in the old gods, 
and was turning wistfully and with widespread ex- 
pectation to the mysterious Hast for enlightenment. 

So, like a ship which plunges into the storm as soon 
as it clears the pier-head, the missionaries felt the first 
dash of the spray and blast of the wind directly they 
began their work. Since this was their first encounter 
with a foe which they would often have to meet, the 
duel assumes importance, and we understand not only 
the fulness of the narrative, but the miracle which 
assured Paul and Barnabas of Christ’s help, and was 
meant to diffuse its encouragement along the line of 


6 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xm. 


their future work. For Elymas it was chastisement, 
which might lead him to cease to pervert the ways of 
the Lord, and himself begin to walk in them. Perhaps, 
after a season, he did see ‘the better Sun,’ 

Saul’s part in the incident is noteworthy. We 
observe the vivid touch, he ‘fastened his eyes on him.’ 
There must have been something very piercing in the 
fixed gaze of these flashing eyes. But Luke takes pains 
to prevent our thinking that Paul spoke from his own 
insight or was moved by human passion. He was 
‘filled with the Holy Ghost,’ and, as His organ, poured 
out the scorching words that revealed the cowering 
apostate to himself, and announced the merciful 
punishment that was to fall. We need to be very — 
sure that we are similarly filled before venturing to 
imitate the Apostle’s tone. 

III. The shifting of the scene to the mainland presents 
some noteworthy points. It is singular that there is 
no preaching mentioned as having been attempted in 
Perga, or anywhere along the coast, but that the two 
evangelists seem to have gone at once across the great 
mountain range of Taurus to Antioch of Pisidia. 

A striking suggestion is made by Ramsay to the 
effect that the reason was a sudden attack of the 
malarial fever which is endemic in the low-lying coast 
plains, and for which the natural remedy is to get up 
among the mountains. If so, the journey to Antioch — 
of Pisidia may not have been in the programme to which 
John Mark had agreed, and his return to Jerusalem 
may have been due to this departure from the 
original intention. Be that as it may, he stands for 
us as a beacon, warning against hasty entrance on 
great undertakings of which we have not counted 
the cost, no less than against cowardly flight from 


_vs.1-13] WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 7 


work, as soon as it begins to involve more danger or 
discomfort than we had reckoned on. 

John Mark was willing to go a-missionarying as long 
as he was in Cyprus, where he was somebody and 
much at home, by his relationship to Barnabas; but 
when Perga and the climb over Taurus into strange 
lands came to be called for, his zeal and courage oozed 
out at his finger-ends, and he skulked back to his 
mother’s house at Jerusalem. No wonder that Paul 
‘thought not good to take with them him who with- 
drew from them. But even such faint hearts as 
Mark’s may take courage from the fact that he nobly 
retrieved his youthful error, and won back Paul’s con- 
fidence, and proved himself ‘profitable to him for the 
ministry.’ 


WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 
‘Saul (who also is called Paul)’. . .—AcTS xiii. 9, 


HiTHERTO the Apostle has been known by the former 
of these names, henceforward he is known exclusively 
by the latter. Hitherto he has been second to his 
friend Barnabas, henceforward he is first. In an 
earlier verse of the chapter we read that ‘Barnabas 
and Saul’ were separated for their missionary work, 
and again, that it was ‘ Barnabas and Saul’ for whom 
the governor of Cyprus sent, to hear the word of the 
Lord. But in a subsequent verse of the chapter we 
read that ‘ Paul and his company loosed from Paphos.’ 
The change in the order of the names is significant, 
and the change in the names not less so. Why was it 
that at this period the Apostle took up this new designa- 
tion? I think that the coincidence between his name 





8 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES fon. xm. 


and that of the governor of Cyprus, who believed at 
his preaching, Sergius Paulus, is too remarkable to be 
accidental. And though, no doubt, it was the custom 
for the Jews of that day, especially for those of them 
who lived in Gentile lands, to have, for convenience’ 
sake, two names, one Jewish and one Gentile—one for 
use amongst their brethren, and one for use amongst 
the heathen—still we have no distinct intimation that 
the Apostle bore a Gentile name before this moment. 
And the fact that the name which he bears now is the 
same as that of his first convert, seems to me to point 
the explanation. 

I take it, then, that the assumption of the name of 
Paul instead of the name of Saul occurred at this point, 
stood in some relation to his missionary work, and was 
intended in some sense as a memorial of his first 
victory in the preaching of the Gospel. 

I think that there are lessons to be derived from the 
substitution of one of these names for the other which 
may well occupy us for a few moments. 

I. First of all, then, the new name expresses a new 
nature. 

Jesus Christ gave the Apostle whom He called to 
Himself in the early days, a new name, in order to 
prophesy the change which, by the discipline of sorrow 
and the communication of the grace of God, should 
pass over Simon Barjona, making him into a Peter, a 
‘Man of Rock.’ With characteristic independence, Saul 
chooses for himself a new name, which shall express 
the change that he feels has passed over his inmost 
being. True, he does not assume it at his conversion, 
but that is no reason why we should not believe that 
he assumes it because he is beginning to understand 
what it is that has happened to him at his conversion. 


v.9] WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 9 


The fact that he changes his name as soon as he 
throws himself into public and active life, is but 
gathering into one picturesque symbol his great 
principle; ‘If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new 
creature. Old things are passed away and all things 
are become new.’ 

So, dear brethren, we may, from this incident before 
us, gather this one great lesson, that the central heart 
of Christianity is the possession of a new life, com- 
municated to us through faith in that Son of God, 
Who is the Lord of the Spirit. Wheresoever there 
is a true faith, there is a new nature. Opinions may 
play upon the surface of a man’s soul, like moon- 
beams on the silver sea, without raising its tem- 
perature one degree or sending a single beam into 
its dark caverns. And that is the sort of Christianity 
that satisfies a great many of you—a Christianity 
of opinion, a Christianity of surface creed, a Chris- 
tianity which at the best slightly modifies some of 
your outward actions, but leaves the whole inner man 
unchanged. 

Paul's Christianity meant a radical change in his 
whole nature. He went out of Jerusalem a persecutor, 
he came into Damascus a Christian. He rode out of 
Jerusalem hating, loathing, despising Jesus Christ; he 
groped his way into Damascus, broken, bruised, cling- 
ing contrite to His feet, and clasping His Cross as his 
only hope. He went out proud, self-reliant, pluming 
himself upon his many prerogatives, his blue blood, 
his pure descent, his Rabbinical knowledge, his Phari- 
saical training, his external religious earnestness, his 
rigid morality; he rode into Damascus blind in the 
eyes, but seeing in the soul, and discerning that all 
these things were, as he says in his strong, vehement 


10 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ea. xm. 


way, ‘but dung’ in comparison with his winning 
Christ. 

And his theory of conversion, which he preaches in 
all his Epistles, is but the generalisation of his own 
personal experience, which suddenly, and in a moment, 
smote his old self to shivers, and raised up a new life, 
with new tastes, views, tendencies, aspirations, with 
new allegiance to a new King. Such changes, so 
sudden, so revolutionary, cannot be expected often to 
take place amongst people who, like us, have been 
listening to Christian teaching all our lives. But 
unless there be this infusion of a new life into men’s 
spirits which shall make them love and long and aspire 
after new things that once they did not care for, I 
know not why we should speak of them as being 
Christians at all. The transition is described by Paul 
as ‘passing from death unto life. That cannot be a 
surface thing. A change which needs a new name 
must be a profound change. Has our Christianity 
revolutionised our nature in any such fashion? It is 
easy to be a Christian after the superficial fashion 
which passes muster with so many of us. A verbal 
acknowledgment of belief in truths which we never 
think about, a purely external performance of acts of 
worship, a subscription or two winged by no sympathy, 
and a fairly respectable life beneath the cloak of which 
all evil may burrow undetected—make the Christianity 
of thousands. Paul’s Christianity transformed him; 
does yours transform you? If it does not, are you 
quite sure that it is Christianity at all? 

II. Then, again, we may take this change of name as 
being expressive of a life’s work. 

Paul is a Roman name. He strips himself of his 
Jewish connections and relationships. His fellow- 


v. 9] WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 11 


countrymen who lived amongst the Gentiles were, 
as I said at the beginning of these remarks, in the 
habit of doing the same thing; but they carried both 
their names; their Jewish for use amongst their 
own people, their Gentile one for use amongst Gen- 
tiles. Paul seems to have altogether disused his 
old name of Saul. It was almost equivalent to 
seceding from Judaism. It is like the acts of the rene- 
gades whom one sometimes hears of, who are found 
by travellers, dressed in turban and flowing robes, 
and bearing some Turkish name, or like some English 
sailor, lost to home and kindred, who deserts his ship 
in an island of the Pacific, and drops his English name 
for a barbarous title, in token that he has given up 
his faith and his nationality. 

So Paul, contemplating for his life’s work preaching 
amongst the Gentiles, determines at the beginning, ‘I 
lay down all of which I used to be proud. If my 
Jewish descent and privileges stand in my way I cast 
them aside. “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock 
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the 
Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee,’—all these I 
wrap together in one bundle, and toss them behind me 
that I may be the better able to help some to whom 
they would have hindered my access.’ A man with a 
heart will throw off his silken robes that his arm may 
be bared to rescue, and his feet free to run to succour. 

So we may, from the change of the Apostle’s name, 
gather this lesson, never out of date, that the only way 
to help people is to go down to their level. If you want 
to bless men, you must identify yourself withthem. It. 
is no use standing on an eminence above them, and 
patronisingly talking down to them. You cannot 
scold, or hector, or lecture men into the possession and 






12 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xu 


acceptance of religious truth if you take a position of 
superiority. As our Master has taught us, if we want — 
to make blind beggars see we must take the blind 
beggars by the hand. 

The spirit which led the Apostle to change the name 
of Saul, with its memories of the royal dignity which, 
in the person of its great wearer, had honoured his 
tribe, for a Roman name is the same which he formally 
announces as a deliberately adopted law of his life. — 
‘To them that are without law I became as without — 
law... that I might gain them that are without law 
... Tam made all things to all men, that I might by 
all means save some.’ 

It is the. very inmost principle of the Gospel. The 
principle that influenced the servant in this ecompara- 
tively little matter, is the principle that influenced the 
Master in the mightiest of all events. ‘He who was 
in the form of God, and thought not equality with God 
a thing to be eagerly snatched at, made Himself of no 
reputation, and was found in fashion as a man and in 
form as a servant, and became obedient unto death.’ 
‘For as much as the children were partakers of flesh 
and blood, He Himself likewise took part of the same’; 
and the mystery of incarnation came to pass, because 
when the Divine would help men, the only way by 
which the Infinite love could reach its end was that 
the Divine should become man; identifying Himself 
with those whom He would help, and stooping to the 
level of the humanity that He would lift. 

And as it is the very essence and heart of Christ's 
work, so, my brother, it is the condition of all work 
that benefits our fellows. It applies all round. We 
must stoop if we would raise. We must put away 
gifts, culture, everything that distinguishes us, and 


v.9] WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 13 


come to the level of the men that we seek to help. 
Sympathy is the parent of all wise counsel, because it 
is the parent of all true understanding of our brethren’s 
wants. Sympathy is the only thing to which people 
will listen, sympathy is the only disposition corre- 
spondent to the message that we Christians are 
entrusted with. For a Christian man to carry the 
Gospel of Infinite condescension to his fellows in a 
spirit other than that of the Master and the Gospel 
which he speaks, is an anomaly and a contradiction. 

And, therefore, let us all remember that a vast deal 
of so-called Christian work falls utterly dead and 
profitless, for no other reason than this, that the doers 
have forgotten that they must come to the level of the 
men whom they would help, before they can expect to 

bless them. 

' You remember the old story of the heroic mission- 
ary whose heart burned to carry the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ amongst captives, and as there was no other 
way of reaching them, let himself be sold for a slave, 
and put out his hands to have the manacles fastened 
upon them. It is the law for all Christian service; 
become like men if you will help them,—‘ To the weak 
as weak, all things to all men, that we might by-all 
means save some.’ 

And, my brother, there was no obligation on Paul’s 
part to do Christian work which does not lie on you. 

Ifl. Further, this change of name is a memorial of 
victory. 

The name is that of Paul’s first convert. He takes it, 
as I suppose, because it seemed to him such a blessed 
thing that at the very moment when he began to sow, 
God helped him to reap. He had gone out to his work, 
no doubt, with much trembling, with weakness and 





14 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx. xm, 


fear. And lo! here, at once, the fields were white 
already to the harvest. 

Great conquerors have been named from their 
victories; Africanus, Germanicus, Nelson of the Nile, 
Napier of Magdala, and the like. Paul names himself 
from the first victory that God gives him to win; and 
so, as it were, carries ever on his breast a memorial of 
the wonder that through him it had been given to 
preach, and that not without success, amongst the 
Gentiles ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ 

That is to say, this man thought of it as his highest 
honour, and the thing best worthy to be remembered 
about his life, that God had helped him to help his 
brethren to know the common Master. Is that your 
idea of the best thing about a life? What would you, 
a professing Christian, like to have for an epitaph on 
your grave? ‘He was rich; he made a big business ~ 
in Manchester’; ‘He was famous, he wrote books’; 
‘He was happy and fortunate’; or, ‘He turned many 
to righteousness’? This man flung away his literary 
tastes, his home joys, and his personal ambition, 
and chose as that for which he would live, and by 
which he would fain be remembered, that he should 
bring dark hearts to the light in which he and they 
together walked. 

His name, in its commemoration of his first success, 
would act as a stimulus to service and to hope. No 
doubt the Apostle, like the rest of us, had his times of 
indolence and languor, and his times of despondeney 
when he seemed to have laboured in vain, and spent 
his strength for nought. He had but to say ‘Paul’ 
to find the antidote to both the one and the other, and 
in the remembrance of the past to find a stimulus for 
service for the future, and a stimulus for hope for the 


v.9] WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL 15 


time to come. His first convert was to him the first 
drop that predicts the shower, the first primrose that 
prophesies the wealth of yellow blossoms and downy 
green leaves that will fill the woods in a day or two. 
The first convert ‘bears in his hand a glass which 
showeth many more. Look at the workmen in the 
streets trying to get up a piece of the roadway. How 
difficult it is to lever out the first paving stone from 
the compacted mass! But when once it has been 
withdrawn, the rest is comparatively easy. We can 
understand Paul’s triumph and joy over the first stone 
which he had worked out of the strongly cemented 
wall and barrier of heathenism; and his conviction 
that having thus made a breach, if it were but wide 
enough to let the end of his lever in, the fall of the 
whole was only a question of time. I suppose that if 
the’ old alchemists had turned but one grain of base 
metal into gold they might have turned tons, if only 
they had had the retorts and the appliances with 
which to do it. And so, what has brought one man’s 
soul into harmony with God, and given one man the 
true life, can do the same for all men. In the first 
fruits we may see the fields whitening to the harvest. 
Let us rejoice then, in any little work that God helps 
us to do, and be sure that if so great be the joy of the 
first fruits, great beyond speech will be the joy of the 
ingathering. 

IV. And now last of all, this change of name is an 
index of the spirit of a life’s work. 

‘Paul’ means ‘little’; ‘Saul’ means ‘desired.’ He 
abandons the name that prophesied of favour and 
- honour, to adopt a name that bears upon its very front 
a profession of humility. His very name is the con- 
densation into a word of his abiding conviction: ‘Iam 





16 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx.xm. 


less than the least of all saints. Perhaps even there 


may be an allusion to his low stature, which may be 


pointed at in the sarcasm of his enemies that his letters 
were strong, though his bodily presence was ‘weak. If 
he was, as Renan calls him, ‘an ugly little Jew, the 
name has a double appropriateness. 

But, at all events, it is an expression of the spirit in 
which he sought to do his work. The more lofty the 
consciousness of his vocation the more lowly will a 
true man’s estimate of himself be. The higher my 


thought of what God has given me grace to do, the ~ 


more shall I feel weighed down by the consciousness of 
my unfitness to do it. And the more grateful my 
remembrance of what He has enabled me to do, the 
more shall I wonder that I have been enabled, and the 
more profoundly shall I feel that it is —_ my strength 
but His that has won the victories. 

So, dear brethren, for all hope, for all success in our 
work, for all growth in Christian grace and character, 
this disposition of lowly self-abasement and recognised 
unworthiness and infirmity is absolutely indispensable. 
The mountain-tops that lift themselves to the stars are 
barren, and few springs find their rise there. Itisin 
the lowly valleys that the flowers grow and the rivers 
run. And it is they who are humble and lowly in 
heart to whom God gives strength to serve Him, and 
the joy of accepted service. 

I beseech you, then, learn your true life’s task. Learn 
how to do it by identifying yourselves with the humbler 
brethren whom you would help. Learn the spirit in 
which it must be done; the spirit of lowly self-abase- 
ment. And oh! above all, learn this, that unless you 
have the new life, the life of God in your hearts, you 
have no life at all. 


¥9] JOHN MARK 17 


Have you, my brother, that faith by which we receive 
into our spirits Christ’s own Spirit, to be our life? If 
you have, then you are a new creature, with a new 
name, perhaps but dimly visible and faintly audible, 
amidst the imperfections of earth, but sure to shine 
out on the pages of the Lamb’s Book of Life; and to be 
read ‘with tumults of acclaim’ before the angels of 
Heaven. ‘I will give him a white stone, and in the 
stone a new name written, which no man knoweth 
save he that receiveth it.’ 


JOHN MARK 
‘,.’.!. John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem.’—Aors xiii. 13. 


THE few brief notices of John Mark in Scripture are 
sufficient to give us an outline of his life, and some 
inkling of his character. He was the son of a well-to- 
do Christian woman in Jerusalem, whose house appears 
to have been the resort of the brethren as early as the 
period of Peter’s miraculous deliverance from prison. 
As the cousin of Barnabas he was naturally selected to 
be the attendant and secular factotum of Paul and 
Barnabas on their first missionary journey. For some 
reason, faint-heartedness, lack of interest, levity of dis- 
position, or whatever it may have been, he very quickly 
abandoned that office and returned to his home. His 
kindly-natured and indulgent relative sought to re- 
instate him in his former position on the second 
journey of Paul and himself. Paul’s kinder severity 
refused to comply with the wish of his colleague 
Barnabas, and so they part, and Barnabas and Mark 
sail away to Cyprus, and drop out of the Acts of the 
Apostles. We hear no more about him until near the 
VOL. II. B 





18 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xm. 


end of the Apostle Paul's life, when the Epistles to 
the Colossians and Philemon show him as again the 
companion of Paul in his captivity. He seems to have 
left him in Rome, to have gone to Asia Minor for a 
space, to have returned to the Apostle during his last 
imprisonment and immediately prior to his death, and 
then to have attached himself to the Apostle Peter, 
and under his direction and instruction to have written 
his Gospel. 

Now these are the bones of his story; can we put 
flesh and blood upon them: and can we get any lessons 
out of them? I think we may; at any rate I am going 
to try. 

I. Consider then, first, his—what shall I eall it? 
well, if I may use the word which Paul himself desig- 
nates it by, in its correct signification, we may call it 
his—apostasy. 

It was not a departure from Christ, but it was a 
departure from very plain duty. And if you will notice 
the point of time at which Mark threw up the work 
that was laid upon him, you will see the reason for his 
doing so. The first place to which the bold evangelists 
went was Cyprus. Barnabas was a native of Cyprus, 
which was perhaps the reason for selecting it as the 
place in which to begin the mission. For the same 
reason, because it was the native place of his relative, 
it would be very easy work for John Mark as long as 
they stopped in Cyprus, among his friends, with people 
that knew him, and with whom no doubt he was 
familiar. But as soon as they crossed the strait 
that separated the island from the mainland, and set 
foot upon the soil of Asia Minor, so soon he turned 
tail; like some recruit that goes into battle, full of 
fervour, but as soon as the bullets begin to ‘ping’ 


v.13] JOHN MARK 19 


makes the best of his way to the rear. He was quite 
ready for missionary work as long as it was easy work; 
quite ready to do it as long as he was moving upon 
known ground and there was no great call upon his 
heroism, or his self-sacrifice; he does not wait to test 
the difficulties, but is frightened by the imagination of 
them, does not throw himself into the work and see 
how he gets on with it, but before he has gone a mile 
into the land, or made any real experience of the perils 
and hardships, has had quite enough of it, and goes 
away back to his mother in Jerusalem. 

Yes, and we find exactly the same thing in all 
kinds of strenuous life. Many begin to run, but one 
after another, as ‘lap’ after ‘lap’ of the racecourse 
is got over, has had enough of it, and drops on one side; 
a hundred started, and at the end the field is reduced 
to three or four. All you men that have grey hairs 
on your heads can remember many of your com- 
panions that set out in the course with you, ‘did run 
well’ for a little while: what has become of them? 
This thing hindered one, the other thing hindered an- 
other; the swiftly formed resolution died down as fast 
us it blazed up; and there are perhaps some three or 
four that, ‘by patient continuance in well-doing,’ have 
been tolerably faithful to their juvenile ideal; and to 
use the homely word of the homely Abraham Lincoln, 
kept ‘pegging away’ at what they knew to be the 
task that was laid upon them. 

This is very ‘threadbare’ morality, very very familiar 
and old-fashioned teaching; but I am accustomed to 
believe that no teaching is threadbare until it is 
practised; and that however well-worn the platitudes 
may be, you and I want them once again unless we 
have obeyed them, and done all which they enjoin. 





20 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xm 


And so in regard to every career which has in it any- 
thing of honour and of effort, let John Mark teach us 
the lesson not swiftly to begin and inconsiderately to - 
venture upon a course, but once begun to let nothing 
discourage, ‘nor bate one jot of heart or hope, but still 
bear up and steer right onward.’ 

And still further and more solemnly still, how 
like this story is to the experience of hundreds and 
thousands of young Christians! Any man who has 
held such an office as I hold, for as many years as I 
have filled it, will have his memory full—and, may I 
say, his eyes not empty—of men and women who began 
like this man, earnest, fervid, full of zeal, and who, like 
him, have slackened in their work; who were Sunday- 
school teachers, workers amongst the poor, I know not 
what, when they were young men and women, and 
who now are idle and unprofitable servants. 

Some of you, dear brethren, need the word of exhor- 
tation and earnest beseeching to contrast the sluggish- 
ness, the indolence of your present, with the brightness 
and the fervour of your past. And I beseech you, do 
not let your Christian life be like that snow that is 
on the ground about us to-day—when it first lights 
upon the earth, radiant and white, but day by day gets 
more covered with a veil of sooty blackness until it 
becomes dark and foul. 

Many of us have to acknowledge that the fervour 
of early days has died down into coldness. The river 
that leapt from its source rejoicing, and bickered 
amongst the hills in such swift and musical descent, 
creeps sluggish and almost stagnant amongst the 
flats of later life, or has been lost and swallowed up 
altogether in the thirsty and encroaching sands of a 
barren worldliness. Oh! my friends, let us all ponder 


v.13] JOHN MARK 21 


this lesson, and see to it that no repetition of the 
apostasy of this man darken our Christian lives and 
sadden our Christian conscience. 

II. And now let me ask you to look next, in the 
development of this little piece of biography, to Mark’s 
eclipse. 

Paul and Barnabas differed about how to treat the 
renegade. Which of them was right? Would it have 
been better to have put him back in his old post, and 
given him another chance, and said nothing about the 
failure; or was it better to do what the sterner wisdom 
of Paul did, and declare that a man who had once so 
forgotten himself and abandoned his work was not 
the man to put in the same place again? Barnabas’ 
highest quality, as far as we know, was a certain kind 
of broad generosity and rejoicing to discern good in 
all men. He was a ‘son of consolation’; the gentle 
kindness of his natural disposition, added to the ties of 
relationship, influenced him in his wish regarding his 
cousin Mark. He made a mistake. It would have 
been the cruellest thing that could have been done 
to his relative to have put him back again with- 
out acknowledgment, without repentance, without his 
riding quarantine for a bit, and holding his tongue for 
a while. He would not then have known his fault as 
he ought to have known it, and so there would never 
have been the chance of his conquering it. 

The Church manifestly sympathised with Paul, and 
thought that he took the right view; for the contrast 
is very significant between the unsympathising silence 
which the narrative records as attending the departure 
of Barnabas and Mark—‘ Barnabas took Mark, and 
sailed away to Cyprus’—and the emphasis with which 
it tells us that the other partner in the dispute, Paul, 





22 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xu 


‘took Silas and departed, being recommended by the 
brethren to the grace of God.’ 

The people at Antioch had no doubt who was right, 
and I think they were right in so deciding. So let us 
learn that God treats His renegades as Paul treated 
Mark, and not as Barnabas would have treated him. 
He is ready, even infinitely ready, to forgive and to 
restore, but desires to see the consciousness of the sin 
first, and desires, before large tasks are re-committed to 
hands that once have dropped them, to have some kind 
of evidence that the hands have grown stronger and 
the heart purified from its cowardice and its selfishness. 
Forgiveness does not mean impunity. The infinite 
mercy of God is not mere weak indulgence which sc — 
deals with a man’s failures and sins as to convey the im- 
pression that these are of no moment whatsoever. And 
Paul's severity which said: ‘No, such work is not fit for 
such hands until the heart has been “broken and 
healed,”’ is of a piece with God’s severity which is love. 
‘Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou 
tookest vengeance of their inventions. Let us learn 
the difference between a weak charity which loves too 
foolishly, and therefore too selfishly, to let a man inherit 
the fruit of his doings, and the large mercy which knows 
how to take the bitterness out of the chastisement, 
and yet knows how to chastise. 

And still further, this which I have called Mark’s 
eclipse may teach us another lesson, viz. that the 
punishment for shirking work is to be denied work, 
just as the converse is true, that in God’s administra- 
tion of the world and of His Church, the reward for 
faithful work is to get more to do, and the filling a 
narrower sphere is the sure way to have a wider 
sphere to fill. So if a man abandons plain duties, then 


v.13] JOHN MARK 23 


he will get no work to do. And that is why so many 
Christian men and women are idle in this world; and 
stand in the market-place, saying, with a certain degree 
of truth, ‘No man hath hired us. No; because so 
often in the past tasks have been presented to you, 
forced upon you, almost pressed into your unwilling 
hands, that you have refused to take; and you are not 
going to get any more. You have been asked to work, 
—I speak now to professing Christians—duties have 
been pressed upon you, fields of service have opened 
plainly before you, and you have not had the heart to 
gointo them. And so you stand idle all the day now, 
and the work goes to other people that will doit. Thus 
God honours them, and passes you by. 

Mark sails away to Cyprus, he does not go back to 
Jerusalem; he and Barnabas try to get up some little 
schismatic sort of mission of theirown. Nothing comes 
of it; nothing ought to have come of it. He drops out 
of the story; he has no share in the joyful conflicts 
and sacrifices and successes of the Apostle. When he 
heard how Paul, by God’s help, was flaming like a 
meteor from East to West, do you not think he wished 
that he had not been such a coward? When the Lord 
was opening doors, and he saw how the work was pros- 
pering in the hands of ancient companions, and Silas 
filled the place that he might have filled, if he had been 
faithful to God, do you not think the bitter thought 
occupied his mind, of how he had flung away what 
never could come back to him now? The punishment 
of indolence is absolute idleness. 

So, my friends, let us learn this lesson, that the 
largest reward that God can give to him that has been 
faithful in a few things, is to give him many things to 
be faithful over. Beware, all of you professing Chris- 





24 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xm 


tians, lest to you should come the fate of the slothful 
servant with his one buried talent, to whom the punish- 
ment of burying it unused was to lose it altogether; 
according to that solemn word which was fulfilled in the 
temporal sphere in this story on which I am comment- 
ing: ‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him 
that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away.’ 

III. Again consider the process of recovery. 

Concerning it we read nothing indeed in Scripture; 
but concerning it we know enough to be able at least 
to determine what its outline must have been. The 
silent and obscure years of compulsory inactivity had 
their fruit, no doubt. There is only one road, with 
well-marked stages, by which a backsliding or apostate 
Christian can return to his Master. And that road has 
three halting-places upon it, through which the heart 
must pass if it have wandered from its early faith, and 
falsified its first professions. The first of them is the 
consciousness of the fall, the second is the resort to the 
Master for forgiveness; and the last is the deepened 
consecration to Him. 

The patriarch Abraham, in a momentary lapse from 
faith to sense, thought himself compelled to leave 
the land to which God had sent him, because a famine 
threatened; and when he came back from Egypt, as 
the narrative tells us with deep significance, he went to 
the ‘place where he had pitched his tent at the begin- 
ning; to the altar which he had reared at the first.’ 
Yes, my friends, we must begin over again, tread all 
the old path, enter by the old wicket-gate, once more 
take the place of the penitent, once more make 
acquaintance with the pardoning Christ, once more 
devote ourselves in renewed consecration to His 
service. No man that wanders into the wilderness but 


v.13] JOHN MARK 25 


comes back by the King’s highway, if he comes back 
at all. 

IV. And so lastly, notice the reinstatement of the 
penitent renegade. 

If you turn at your leisure to the remaining notices 
of John Mark in Scripture, you will find, in two of 
Paul's Epistles of the captivity, viz., those to the Colos- 
sians and Philemon, references to him; and these refer- 
ences are of a very interesting and beautiful nature. 
Paul says that in Rome Mark was one of the four born 


- Jews who had been a cordial and a comfort to him in 


his imprisonment. He commends him, in the view 
of a probable journey, to the loving reception of the 
church at Colosse, as if they knew something dero- 
gatory to his character, the impression of which the 
Apostle desired to remove. He sends to Philemon the 
greetings of the repentant renegade in strange juxta- 
position with the greetings of two other men, one who 
was an apostate at the end of his career instead of at 
the beginning, and of whom we do not read that he 
ever came back, and one who all his life long is the type 
of a faithful friend and companion. ‘Mark, Demas, 
Luke’ are bracketed as greeting Philemon; the first a 
runaway that came back, the second a fugitive who, so 
far as we know, never returned, and the last the faith- 
ful friend throughout. 

And then in Paul’s final Epistle, and in almost the 
last words of it, we read his request to Timothy. ‘Take 
Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to 
me for the ministry.’ The first notice of him was: ‘They 
had John to their minister’; the last word about him 
is: ‘he is profitable for the ministry. The Greek words 
in the original are not identical, but their meaning is 
substantially the same. So notwithstanding the failure, 





26 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {ca. xm. 


notwithstanding the wise refusal of Paul years before 
to have anything more to do with him, he is now 
reinstated in his old office, and the aged Apostle, before 
he dies, would like to have the comfort of his presence 
once more at his side. Is not the lesson out of that, 
this eternal Gospel that even early failures, recognised 
and repented of, may make a man better fitted for the 
tasks from which once he fled? Just as they tell us— 
I do not know whether it is true or not, it will do for 
an illustration—just as they tell us that a broken bone 
renewed is stronger at the point of fracture than it 
ever was before, so the very sin that we commit, when 
once we know it fora sin, and have brought it to Christ 
for forgiveness, may minister to our future efficiency 
and strength. The Israelites fought twice upon one 
battlefield. On the first occasion they were shamefully 
defeated; on the second, on the same ground, and 
against the same enemies, they victoriously emerged 
from the conflict, and reared the stone which said, 
‘Ebenezer!’ ‘Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.’ 

And so the temptations which have been sorest may 
be overcome, the sins into which we most naturally 
fall we may put our foot upon; the past is no specimen 
of what the future may be. The page that is yet to 
be written need have none of the blots of the page 
that we have turned over shining through it. Sin 
which we have learned to know for sin and to hate, 
teaches us humility, dependence, shows us where our 
weak places are. Sin which is forgiven knits us to 
Christ with deeper and more fervid love, and results in 
a larger consecration. Think of the two ends of this 
man’s life—flying like a frightened hare from the very 
first suspicion of danger or of difficulty, sulking in his 
solitude, apart from all the joyful stir of consecration 


v.13] PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR 27 


and of service; and at last made an evangelist to pro- 
claim to the whole world the story of the Gospel 
of the Servant. God works with broken reeds, and 
through them breathes His sweetest music. 

So, dear brethren, ‘Take with you words, and return 
unto the Lord; say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, 
and receive us graciously, and the answer will surely 
be :—‘I will heal their backsliding; I will love them 
freely ; I will be as the dew unto Israel.’ 


THE FIRST PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR 


“Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among 
you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. 27. For they that dwell 
at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of 
the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in con- 
demning Him. 28. And though they found no cause of death in Him, yet desired 
they Pilate that he should be slain. 29. And when they had fulfilled all that was 
written of Him, they took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a sepulchre. 
30. But God raised Him from the dead: 31. And He was seen many days of them 
which came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto 
the people. 32. And wedeclare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which 
was made unto the fathers, 33. God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, 
in that He hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, 
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. 34. And as concerning that He 
raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, He said 
on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. 35. Wherefore He saith 
also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 
36. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on 
sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: 37. But He, whom God 
raised again, saw no corruption. 38. Be it known unto you therefore, men and 
brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 
39. And by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could 
not be justified by the law of Moses.’—ActTs xiii. 26-39. 


THE extended report of Paul’s sermon in the synagogue 
at Antioch of Pisidia marks it, in accordance with Luke’s 
method, as the first of a series. It was so because, 
though the composition of the audience was identical 
with that of those in the.synagogues of Cyprus, this 
was the beginning of the special work of the tour, the 
preaching in the cities of Asia Minor. The part of the 





28 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ox. xm. 


address contained in the passage falls into three 
sections,—the condensed narrative of the Gospel facts 
(vs. 26-31), the proof that the resurrection was prophe- 
sied (vs. 32-37), and the pungent personal application 
(v. 38 to end). 

I. The substance of the narrative coincides, as it 
could not but do, with Peter’s sermons, but yet with 
differences, partly due to the different audience, partly 
to Paul’s idiosyncrasy. After the preceding historical 
résumé, he girds himself to his proper work of pro- 
claiming the Gospel, and he marks the transition in 
verse 26 by reiterating his introductory words. 

His audience comprised the two familiar classes of 
Jews and Gentile proselytes, and he seeks to win the 
ears of both. His heart goes out in his address to them 
all as ‘brethren, and in his classing himself and Barnabas 
among them as receivers of the message which he has 
to proclaim. What skill, if it were not something much 
more sacred, even humility and warm love, lies in that 
‘to us is the word of this salvation sent’! He will not 
stand above them as if he had any other possession 
of his message than they might have. He, too, has 
received it, and what he is about to say is not his word, 
but God’s message to them and him. That is the way 
to preach. 

Notice, too, how skilfully he introduces the narrative 
of the rejection of Jesus as the reason why the message 
has now come to them his hearers away in Antioch. 
It is ‘sent forth’ ‘to us,’ Asiatic Jews, for the people in 
the sacred city would not have it. Paul does not prick 
his hearers’ consciences, as Peter did, by charging home 
the guilt of the rejection of Jesus on them. They had 
no share in that initial crime. There is a faint purpose 
of dissociating himself and his hearers from the 


_ ys. 26-39] PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR = 29 


people of Jerusalem, to whom the Dispersion were 
accustomed to look up, in the designation, ‘they that 


_ dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers. Thus far the 


_ Antioch Jews had had hands clean from that crime; 
they had now to choose whether they would mix them- 
selves up with it. 

We may further note that Paul says nothing about 
Christ’s life of gentle goodness, His miracles or teach- 
ing, but concentrates attention on His death and 
resurrection. From the beginning of his ministry 
these were the main elements of his ‘Gospel’ (1 Cor. 
xv. 3, 4). The full significance of that death is not 
declared here. Probably it was reserved for subsequent 
instruction. But it and the Resurrection, which inter- 
preted it, are set in the forefront, as they should always 
be. The main point insisted on is that the men of 
Jerusalem were fulfilling prophecy in slaying Jesus. 
With tragic deafness, they knew not the voices of the 
prophets, clear and unaninicus as they were, though 
they heard them every Sabbath of their lives, and yet 
they fulfilled them. A prophet’s words had just been 
read in the synagogue; Paul's words might set some 
hearer asking whether a veil had been over his heart 
while his ears had heard the sound of the word. 

The Resurrection is established by the only evidence 
for a historical fact, the testimony of competent eye- 
witnesses. Their competence is established by their 
familiar companionship with Jesus during His whole 
career; their opportunities for testing the reality of 
the fact, by the ‘many days’ of His appearances. 

Paul does not put forward his own testimony to 
the Resurrection, though we know, from 1 Corinthians 
xv. 8, that he regarded Christ’s appearance to him as 
being equally valid eviaence with that afforded by the 





ret atk 


30 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca xm. 


other appearances; but he distinguishes between the 
work of the Apostles, as ‘witnesses unto the people ’— 
that is, the Jews of Palestine—and that of Barnabas 
and himself. They had to bear the message to the 
regions beyond. The Apostles and he had the same 
work, but different spheres. 

II. The second part turns with more personal address 
to his hearers. Its purport is not so much to preach 
the Resurrection, which could only be proved by tes- 
timony, as to establish the fact that it was the fulfil- 
ment of the promises to the fathers. Note how the 
idea of fulfilled prophecy runs in Paul's head. The 
Jews had fulfilled it by their crime; God fulfilled it by 
the Resurrection. This reiteration of a key-word is a 
mark of Paul’s style in his Epistles, and its appearance 
here attests the accuracy of the report of his speech. 

The second Psalm, from which Paul's first quotation 
is made, is prophetic of Christ, inasmuch as it repre- 
sents in vivid lyrical language the vain rebellion of 
earthly rulers against Messiah, and Jehovah's establish- 
ing Him and His kingdom bya steadfast deeree. Peter 
quoted its picture of the rebels, as fulfilled in the coali- 
tion of Herod, Pilate, and the Jewish rulers against 
Christ. The Messianic reference of the Psalm, then, 
was already seen; and we may not be going too far if 
we assume that Jesus Himself had included it among 
things written in the Psalms ‘concerning Himself, 
which He had explained to the disciples after the 
Resurrection. It depicts Jehovah speaking to Messiah, 
after the futile attempts of the rebels: ‘This day have 
I begotten Thee.’ That day is a definite point in time. 
The Resurrection was a- birth from the dead; so Paul, 
in Colossians i. 18, calls Jesus ‘ the first begotten from 
the dead.’ Romans i. 4, ‘declared to be the Son of 





ee 


3? 


vs. 26-39] PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR 381 


God . . . by the resurrection from the dead, is the 
best commentary on Paul’s words here. 

The second and third quotations must apparently be 
combined, for the second does not specifically refer to 
resurrection, but it promises to ‘you, that is to those 
who obey the call to partake in the Messianic blessings, 
a share in the ‘sure’ and enduring ‘mercies of David’; 
and the third quotation shows that not ‘to see corrup- 
tion’ was one of these ‘mercies. That implies that 
the speaker in the Psalm was, in Paul’s view, David, 
and that his words were his believing answer to a 
divine promise. But David was dead. Had the ‘sure 
mercy’ proyed, then, a broken reed? Not so: for 
Jesus, who is Messiah, and is God’s ‘Holy One’ in a 
deeper sense than David was, has not seen corruption. 
The Psalmist’s hopes are fulfilled in Him, and through 
Him, in all who will ‘eat’ that their ‘souls may live.’ 

III. But Paul's yearning for his brethren’s salvation 
is not content with proclaiming the fact of Christ’s 
resurrection, nor with pointing to it as fulfilling 
prophecy ; he gathers all up into a loving, urgent offer 
of salvation for every believing soul, and solemn 
warning to despisers. Here the whole man flames out. 
Here the characteristic evangelical teaching, which is 
sometimes ticketed as ‘Pauline’ by way of stigma, is 
heard. Already had he grasped the great antithesis 
between Law and Gospel. Already his great word 
‘justified’ has taken its place in his terminology. The 
essence of the Epistles to Romans and Galatians is 
here. Justification is the being pronounced and 
_ treated as not guilty. Law cannot justify. ‘In Him’ 
we are justified. Observe that this is an advance on 
the previous statement that ‘through Him’ we receive 
remission of sins. 


32 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xm 


‘In Him’ points, though but incidentally and slightly, 
to the great truth of incorporation with Jesus, of 
which Paul had afterwards so much to write. The 
justifying in Christ is complete and absolute. And 
the sole sufficient condition of receiving it is faith. 
But the greater the glory of the light the darker the 
shadow which it casts. The broad offer of complete 
salvation has ever to be accompanied with the plain 
warning of the dread issue of rejecting it. Just because 
it is so free and full, and to be had on such terms, the 
warning has to be rung into deaf ears, ‘Beware there- 
fore!’ Hope and fear are legitimately appealed to by 
the Christian evangelist. They are like the two wings 
which may lift the soul to soar to its safe shelter in 
the Rock of Ages. 


LUTHER—A STONE ON THE CAIRN 


‘For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on 


sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: 37. But He, whom God 
raised again, saw no corruption.’—AotTs xiii. 36, 37. 


I TAKE these words as a motto rather than as a text. 
You will have anticipated the use which I purpose to 
make of them in connection with the Luther Com- 
memoration. They set before us, in clear sharp 
contrast, the distinction between the limited, transient 
work of the servants and the unbounded, eternal 
influence of the Master. The former are servants, and 
that but for a time; they do their work, they are laid 
in the grave, and as their bodies resolve into their 
elements, so their influence, their teaching, the in- 
stitutions which they may have founded, disintegrate 
and decay. He lives. His relation to the world is not 
as theirs; He is ‘not for an age, but for all time.’ 


vs. 36,37] A STONE ON THE CAIRN 88 


Death is not the end of His work. His Cross is the 
eternal foundation of the world’s hope. His life is 
the ultimate, perfect revelation of the divine Nature 
which can never be surpassed, or fathomed, or anti- 
quated. Therefore the last thought, in all commemora- 
tions of departed teachers and guides, should be of 
Him who gave them all the force that they had; and 
the final word should be: ‘They were not suffered to 
continue by reason of death, this Man continueth ever.’ 

In the same spirit then as the words of my text, 
and taking them as giving me little more than a 
starting-point and a framework, I draw from them 
some thoughts appropriate to the occasion. 

I. First, we have to think about the limited and 
transient work of this great servant of God. 

The miner’s son, who was born in that little Saxon 
village four hundred years ago, presents at first sight 
a character singularly unlike the traditional type of 
medizval Church fathers and saints. Their ascetic 
habits, and the repressive system under which they 
were trained, withdraw them from our sympathy ; but 
this sturdy peasant, with his full-blooded humanity, 
unmistakably a man, and aman all round, is a new type, 
and looks strangely out of place amongst doctors and 
medizval saints. 

His character, though not complex, is many-sided and 
in some respects contradictory. The face and figure 
that look out upon us from the best portraits of Luther 
tell us a great deal about the man. Strong, massive, 
not at all elegant; he stands there, firm and resolute, 
on his own legs, grasping a Bible in a muscular hand. 
There is plenty of animalism—a source of power as 
well as of weakness—in the thick neck; an iron will 
in the square chin; eloquence on the full, loose lips; 

VOL. II. Cc 






34 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx, xm. 


a mystic, dreamy tenderness and sadness in the steadfast — 
eyes—altogether a true king and a leader of men! 

The first things that strike one in the character are 
the iron will that would not waver, the indomitable 
courage that knew no fear, the splendid audacity that, 
single-handed, sprang into the arena for a contest to 
the death with Pope, Emperors, superstitions, and 
devils; the insight that saw the things that were 
‘hid from the wise and prudent, and the answering 
sincerity that would not hide what he saw, nor say 
that he saw what he did not. 

But there was a great deal more than that in the 
man. He was no mere brave revolutionary, he was 
a cultured scholar, abreast of all the learning of his 
age, capable of logiec-chopping and scholastic disputa- 
tion on occasion, and but too often the victim ‘of his 
own over-subtle refinements. He was a poet, with a . 
poet's dreaminess and waywardness, fierce alternations 
of light and shade, sorrow and joy. All living things 
whispered and spoke to him, and he walked in com- 
munion with them all. Little children gathered round 
his feet, and he had a big heart of love for all the 
weary and the sorrowful. 

Everybody knows how he could write and speak. 
He made the German language, as we may say, lifting 
it up from a dialect of boors to become the rich, flexible, 
cultured speech that it is. And his Bible, his single- 
handed work, is one of the colossal achievements of 
man; like Stonehenge or the Pyramids. ‘His words 
were half-battles,’ ‘they were living creatures that had 
hands and feet’; his speech, direct, strong, homely, 
ready to borrow words from the kitchen or the gutter, 
is unmatched for popular eloquence and impression. 
There was music in the man. His flute solaced his 





vs.36,37] A STONE ON THE CAIRN 35 


lonely hours in his home at Wittemberg; and the 


Marseillaise of the Reformation, as that grand hymn 


of his has been called, came, words and music, from 


his heart. There was humour in him, coarse horseplay 
often; an honest, hearty, broad laugh frequently, like 


that of a Norse god. There were coarse tastes in him, 


tastes of the peasant folk from whom he came, which 
clung to him through life, and kept him in sympathy 
with the common people, and intelligible to them. 
And withal there was a constitutional melancholy, 
aggravated by his weary toils, perilous fightings, and 
fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep 
mire where there was no standing; and which sighs 
through all his life. The penitential Psalms and Paul’s 
wail: ‘O wretched man that I am, perhaps never 
woke more plaintive echo in any human heart than © 
they did in Martin Luther's. 

Faults he had, gross and plain as the heroic mould 
in which he was cast. He was vehement and fierce 
often; he was coarse and violent often. He saw what 
he did see so clearly, that he was slow to believe that 


there was anything that he did not see. He was 


oblivious of counterbalancing considerations, and given 
to exaggerated, incautious, unguarded statements of 
precious truths. He too often aspired to be a driver 
rather than a leader of men; and his strength of will 
became obstinacy and tyranny. It was too often true 


that he had dethroned the pope of Rome to set up 


a4,ope at Wittemberg. And foul personalities came 
from his lips, according to the bad controversial fashion 
of his day, which permitted a licence to scholars that 
we now forbid to fishwives. 

All that has to be admitted; and when it is all 


admitted, what then? This is a fastidious generation; 





36 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca xm. 


Erasmus is its heroic type a great deal more than 
Luther—I mean among the cultivated classes of our 
day—and that very largely because in Erasmus there 
is no quick sensibility to religious emotion as there 
is in Luther, and no inconvenient fervour. The faults 
are there—coarse, plain, palpable—and perhaps more 
than enough has been made of them. Let us remember, 
as to his violence, that he was following the fashion 
of the day; that he was fighting for his life; that 
when a man is at death-grips with a tiger he may be 
pardoned if he strikes without considering whether he 


is going to spoil the skin or not; and that on the © 


whole you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude. 
Men fought then with bludgeons; they fight now with 
dainty polished daggers, dipped in cold, colourless poison 
of sarcasm. Perhaps there was less malice in the 
rougher old way than in the new. : 

The faults are there, and nobody who is not a fool 
would think of painting that homely Saxon peasant- 
monk’s face without the warts and the wrinkles. But 
it is quite as unhistorical, and a great deal more 
wicked, to paint nothing but the warts and wrinkles; 
to rake all the faults together and make the most of 
them; and present them in answer to the question: 
‘What sort of a man was Martin Luther?’ 

As to the work that he did, like the work of all of 
us, it had its limitations, and it will have its end. The 
impulse that he communicated, like all impulses that 
are given from men, will wear out its force. New 
questions will arise of which the dead leaders never 
dreamed, and in which they can give no counsel. The 
perspective of theological thought will alter, the centre 
of interest will change, a new dialect will begin to be 
spoken. So it comes to pass that all religious teachers 


vs, 36,37] A STONE ON THE CAIRN 37 


and thinkers are left behind, and that their words are 
preserved and read rather for their antiquarian and 
historical interest than because of any impulse or 
direction for the present which may linger in them; 
and if they founded institutions, these too, in their 
time, will crumble and disappear. 

But I do not mean to say that the truths which 
Luther rescued from the dust of centuries, and im- 
pressed upon the conscience of Teutonic Europe, are 
getting antiquated. I only mean that his connection 
with them and his way of putting them, had its limita- 
tions and will have its end: ‘This man, having served 
his own generation by the will of God, was gathered 
to his fathers, and saw corruption.’ 

What were the truths, what was his contribution to 
the illumination of Europe, and to the Church? Three 
great principles—which perhaps closer analysis might 
reduce to one; but which for popular use, on such an 
occasion as the present, had better be kept apart—will 
state his service to the world. 

There were three men in the past who, as it seems 
to me, reach out their hands to one another across the 
centuries—Paul, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther. 
The three very like each other, all three of them 
joining the same subtle speculative power with the 
same capacity of religious fervour, and of flaming up 
at the contemplation of divine truth; all of them 
gifted with the same exuberant, and to fastidious eyes, 
incorrect eloquence; all three trained in a school of 
religious thought of which each respectively was 
destined to be the antagonist and all but the destroyer. 

The young Pharisee, on the road to Damascus, blinded, 
bewildered, with all that vision flaming upon him, sees 
in its light his past, which he thought had been so 





38 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cen. xin. 


_ pure, and holy, and God-serving, and amazedly dis- 
covers that it had been all a sin and a erime, and a 
persecution of the divine One. Beaten from every 
refuge, and lying there, he cries: ‘What wouldst Thou 
have me to do, Lord ?’ 

The young Manichean and profligate in the fourth 
century, and the young monk in his convent in the 
fifteenth, passed through a similar experience ;—differ- 
ent in form, identical in substance—with that of Paul 
the persecutor. And so Paul’s Gospel, which was the 
description and explanation, the rationale, of his own 
experience, became their Gospel; and when Paul said: 
‘Not by works of righteousness which our own hands 
have done, but by His mercy He saved us’ (Titus iii. 5), 
the great voice from the North African shore, in the 
midst of the agonies of barbarian invasions and a 
falling Rome, said ‘Amen. Man lives by faith, and 
the voice from the Wittemberg convent, a thousand 
years after, amidst the unspeakable corruption of that 
phosphorescent and decaying Renaissance, answered 
across the centuries, ‘It is true!’ ‘Herein is the 
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.’ 
Luther’s word to the world was Augustine’s word to 
the world; and Luther and Augustine were the echoes 
of Saul of Tarsus—and Paul learned his theology on 
the Damascus road, when the voice bade him go and 
proclaim ‘forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among 
them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me’ (Acts 
xxvi. 18). That is Luther's first claim on our gratitude, 
that he took this truth from the shelves where it had 
reposed, dust-covered, through centuries, that he lifted 
this truth from the bier where it had lain, smothered 
with sacerdotal garments, and called with a loud voice, 
‘I say unto thee, arise!’ and that now the common- 


ee) ee eee ee ee 


vs. 36,37] ASTONE ON THE CAIRN 39 


place of Christianity is this: All men are sinful men, 
justice condemns us all, our only hope is God's infinite 
mercy, that mercy comes to us all in Jesus Christ 
that died for us, and he that gets that into his heart by 
simple faith, he is forgiven, pure, and he is an heir of 
Heaven. 

There are other aspects of Christian truth which 
Luther failed to apprehend. The Gospel is, of course, 
not merely a way of reconciliation and forgiveness. 
He pushed his teaching of the uselessness of good works 
as a means of salvation too far. He said rash and 
exaggerated things in his vehement way about the 
‘justifying power’ of faith alone. Doubtless his lan- 
guage was often overstrained, and his thoughts one- 
sided, in regard to subjects that need very delicate 
handling and careful definition. But after all this is 
admitted, it remains true that his strong arm tossed 
aside the barriers and rubbish that had been piled 
across the way by which prodigals could go home to 
their Father, and made plain once more the endless 
mercy of God, and the power of humble faith. He was 
right when he declared that whatever heights and 
depths there may be in God’s great revelation, and 
however needful it is for a complete apprehension of 
the truth as it is in Jesus that these should find their 
place in the creed of Christendom, still the firmness 
with which that initial truth of man’s sinfulness and 
his forgiveness and acceptance through simple faith in 
Christ is held, and the clear earnestness with which it 
is proclaimed, are the test of a standing or a falling 
Church. 

And then closely connected with this central prin- 
ciple, and yet susceptible of being stated separately, 
are the other two; of neither of which do I think it 





40 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xm. 


necessary to say more than a word. Following on 
that great discovery—for it was a discovery—by the 
monk in his convent, of justification by faith, there 
comes the other principle of the entire sweeping 
away of all priesthood, and the direct access to God of 
every individual Christian soul. There are no more 
external rites to be done by a designated and separate 
class. There is one sacrificing Priest, and one only, 
and that is Jesus Christ, who has sacrificed Himself 
for us all, and there are no other priests, except in the 
sense in which every Christian man is a priest and 
minister of the most high God. And no man comes 
between me and my Father; and no man has power to 
do anything for me which brings me any grace, except 
in so far as mine own heart opens for the reception, and 
mine own faith lays hold of the grace given. 

Luther did not carry that principle so far as some of 
us modern Nonconformists carry it. He left illogical 
fragments of sacramentarian and sacerdotal theories 
in his creed andin his Church. But, for all that, we owe 
mainly to him the clear utterance of that thought, the 
warm breath of which has thawed the ice chains which 
held Europe in barren bondage. Notwithstanding the 
present portentous revival of sacerdotalism, and the 
strange turning again of portions of society to these 
beggarly elements of the past, I believe that the 
figments of a sacrificing priesthood and sacramental 
efficacy will never again permanently darken the sky 
in this land, the home of the men who speak the tongue 
of Milton, and owe much of their religious and political 
freedom to the reformation of Luther. 

And the third point, which is closely connected with 
these other two, is this, the declaration that every 
illuminated Christian soul has a right and is bound to 


vs. 36,37] A STONE ON THE CAIRN 41 


study God’s Word without the Church at his elbow to 
teach him what to think aboutit. It was Luther's great 
achievement that, whatever else he did, he put the 
Bible into the hands of the common people. In that 
department and region, his work perhaps bears more 
distinctly the traces of limitation and imperfection 
than anywhere else, for he knew nothing—how could 
he ?—of the difficult questions of this day in regard to 
the composition and authority of Scripture, nor had he 
thought out his own system or done full justice to his 
own principle. 

He could be as inquisitorial and as dogmatic as any 
Dominican of them all. He believed in force; he was 
as ready as all his fellows were to invoke the aid of 
the temporal power. The idea of the Church, as helped 
and sustained—which means fettered, and weakened, 
and paralysed — by the civic government, bewitched 
him as it did his fellows. We needed to wait for George 
Fox, and Roger Williams, and more modern names 
still, before we understood fully what was involved in 
the rejection of priesthood, and the claim that God’s 
Word should speak directly to each Christian soul. 
But for all that, we largely owe to Luther the creed 
that looks in simple faith to Christ, a Church without 
a priest, in which every man is a priest of the Most 
High,—the only true democracy that the world will 
ever see—and a Church in which the open Bible and 
the indwelling Spirit are the guides of every humble 
soul within its pale. These are his claims on our 
gratitude. 

Luther’s work had its limitations and its imperfec- 
tions, as I have been saying to you. It will become 
less and less conspicuous as the ages go on. It cannot 
be otherwise. That is the law of the world. Asa 


42 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn.xm. _ 


whole green forest of the carboniferous era is repre- 
sented now in the rocks by a thin seam of coal, no 
thicker than a sheet of paper, so the stormy lives and 
the large works of the men that have gone before, are 
compressed into a mere film and line, in the great cliff 
that slowly rises above the sea of time and is called the 
history of the world. 

II. Beitso; beitso! Let us turn to the other thought 
of our text, the perpetual work of the abiding Lord. 

‘He whom God raised up saw no corruption.’ It is 
a fact that there are thousands of men and women 
in the world to-day who have a feeling about that 
nineteen-centuries-dead Galilean carpenter's son that 
they have about no one else. All the great names of 
antiquity are but ghosts and shadows, and all the 
names in the Church and in the world, of men whom 
we have not seen, are dim and ineffectual to us. They 
may evoke our admiration, our reverence, and our 
wonder, but none of them can touch our hearts. But 
here is this unique, anomalous fact that men and 
women by the thousand love Jesus Christ, the dead 
One, the unseen One, far away back there in the ages, 
and feel that there is no mist of oblivion between them 
and Him. 

That is because He does for you and me what none 
of these other men can do. Luther preached about the 
Cross; Christ died on it. ‘Was Paul crucified for you?’ 
there is the secret of His undying hold upon the world. 
The further secret lies in this, that He is not a past 
force but a present one. He is no exhausted power but 
a power mighty to-day; working in us, around us, on 
us, and for us—a living Christ. ‘This Man whom God 
raised up from the dead saw no corruption, the others 
move away from us like figures in a fog, dim as they 





—— a 


vs. 36,37] A STONE ON THE CAIRN 43 


pass into the mists, having a blurred half-spectral 
outline for a moment, and then gone. 

Christ’s death has a present and a perpetual power. He 
has ‘ offered one sacrifice for sins for ever’; and no time 
can diminish the efficacy of His Cross, nor our need of 
it, nor the full tide of blessings which flow from it to 
the believing soul. Therefore do men cling to Him to- 
day as if it was but yesterday that He had died for 
them. When all other names carved on the world’s 
records have become unreadable, like forgotten inscrip- 
tions on decaying grave-stones, His shall endure for 
ever, deep graven on the fleshly tables of the heart. 
His revelation of God is the highest truth. Till the 
end of time men will turn to His life for their clearest 
knowledge and happiest certainty of their Father in 
heaven. There is nothing limited or local in His char- 
acter or works. In His meek beauty and gentle per- 
fectness, He stands so high above us all that, to-day, 
the inspiration of His example and the lessons of His 
conduct touch us as much as if He had lived in this 
generation, and will always shine before men as their 
best and most blessed law of conduct. Christ will not 
be antiquated till He is outgrown, and it will be some 
time before that happens. 

But Christ’s power is not only the abiding influence 
of His earthly life and death. He is not a past force, 
but a present one. He is putting forth fresh energies 
to-day, working in and for and by all who love Him. 
We believe in a living Christ. 

Therefore the final thought, in all our grateful com- 
memoration of dead helpers and guides, should be of 
the undying Lord. He sent whatsoever power was in 
them. He is with His Church to-day, still giving to 
men the gifts needful for their times. Aaron may die 





44 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xm, 


on Hor, and Moses be laid in his unknown grave on 
Pisgah, but the Angel of the Covenant, who is the true 
Leader, abides in the pillar of cloud and fire, Israel’s 
guide in the march, and covering shelter in repose. 
That is our consolation in our personal losses when our 
dear ones are ‘not suffered to continue by reason of 
death.’ He who gave them all their sweetness is with 
us still, and has all the sweetness which He lent them 
for a time. So if we have Christ with us we cannot 
be desolate. Looking on all the men, who in their turn 
have helped forward His cause a little way, we should 
let their departure teach us His presence, their limita- 
tions His all-sufficiency, their death His life. 

Luther was once found, at a moment of peril and 
fear, when he had need to grasp unseen strength, sitting 
in an abstracted mood, tracing on the table with his 
finger the words ‘Vivit! vivit !’"—‘ He lives! He lives!’ 
It is our hope for ourselves, and for God’s truth, and for 
mankind. Men come and go; leaders, teachers, thinkers 
speak and work for a season and then fall silent and 
impotent. He abides. They die, but He lives. They 
are lights kindled, and therefore sooner or later 
quenched, but He is the true light from which they 
draw all their brightness, and He shines for evermore. 
Other men are left behind and, as the world glides for- 
ward, are wrapped in ever-thickening folds of oblivion, 
through which they shine feebly for a little while, like 
lamps in a fog, and then are muffled in invisibility. We 
honour other names, and the coming generations will 
forget them, but ‘His name shall endure for ever, His 
name shall continue as long as the sun, and men shall 
be blessed in Him; all nations shall call Him blessed.’ 





JEWISH REJECTERS AND GENTILE 
RECEIVERS 


‘And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the 
word of God. 45. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with 
envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting 
and blaspheming. 46. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was 
necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing 
ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn 
to the Gentiles. 47. Forso hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee 
to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of 
the earth. 48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified 
the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. 
49. And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. 50. But 
the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the 
city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out 
of their coasts. 51. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and 
came unto Iconium. 52. And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the 
Holy Ghost. 

‘And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the syna- 
gogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also 
of the Greeks believed. 2. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and 
made their minds evil affected against the brethren. 3. Long time therefore 
abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of 
His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. 4. But the 
multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with 
the Apostles. 5. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and 
also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them, 
6. They were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and 
unto the region that lieth round about: 7. And there they preached the Gospel.’ 
—ACTS xiii. 44-52; xiv. 1-7. 


In general outline, the course of events in the two 
great cities of Asia Minor, with which the present 
passage is concerned, was the same. It was only too 
faithful a forecast of what was to be Paul’s experience 
everywhere. The stages are: preaching in the syna- 
gogue, rejection there, appeal to the Gentiles, reception 
by them, a little nucleus of believers formed; dis- 
turbances fomented by the Jews, who swallow their 
hatred of Gentiles by reason of their greater hatred 
of thé Apostles, and will riot with heathens, though 
they will not pray nor eat with them; and finally the 
Apostles’ departure to carry the gospel farther afield. 
This being the outline, we have mainly to consider any 
special features diversifying it in each case. 


4a 






Their experience in Antioch was important, because 
it forced Paul and Barnabas to put into plain words, 
making very clear to themselves as well as to their 
hearers, the law of their future conduct. It is always 
a step in advance when circumstances oblige us to 
formularise our method of action. Words have a 
wonderful power in clearing up our own vision. Paul 
and Barnabas had known all along that they were sent 
to the Gentiles; but a conviction in the mind is one 
thing, and the same conviction driven in on us by facts 


is quite another. The discipline of Antioch crystallised 


floating intentions into a clear statement, which hence- 
forth became the rule of Paul’s conduct. Well for us 
if we have open eyes to discern the meaning of 
difficulties, and promptitude and decision to fix and 
speak out plainly the course which they prescribe! 

The miserable motives of the Jews’ antagonism are 
forcibly stated in vs. 44, 45. They did not ‘contradict 


and blaspheme,’ because they had taken a week to 


think over the preaching and had seen its falseness, 
but simply because, dog-in-the-manger like, they could 
not bear that ‘the whole city’ should be welcome to 
share the message. No doubt there was a crowd of 
‘Gentile dogs’ thronging the approach to the syna- 
gogue; and one can almost see the scowling faces and 
hear the rustle of the robes drawn closer to avoid 
pollution. Who were these wandering strangers that 
they should gather such a crowd? And what had the 
uncircumcised rabble of Antioch to do with ‘the 
promises made to the fathers’? It is not the only 
time that religious men have taken offence at crowds 
gathering to hear God’s word. Let us take care that 
we do not repeat the sin. There are always some 
who— 


sy 4 


46 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xm. 


eS a a ee 


LS ee ee ee ead 


EE a 


‘al 


f 
oy 


ys. 44-52; 1-7] REJECTERS: RECEIVERS 47 


‘Taking God’s word under wise protection, 

Correct its tendency to diffusiveness.’ 
It needed some courage to front the wild excitement of 
such a mob, with calm, strong words likely to increase 
the rage. 

‘Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. This is not to be 
regarded as announcing a general course of action, 
but simply as applying to the actual rejecters in 
Antioch. The necessity that the word should first be 
spoken to the Jews continued to be recognised, in each 
new sphere of work, by the Apostle; but wherever, as 
here, men turned from the message, the messengers 
turned from them without further waste of time. 
Paul put into words here the law for his whole career. 
The fit punishment of rejection is the withdrawal of 
the offer. There is something pathetic in the per- 
sistence with which, in place after place, Paul goes 
through the same sequence, his heart yearning 
over his brethren according to the flesh, and hoping 
on, after all repulses. It was far more than natural 
patriotism; it was an offshoot of Christ’s own patient 
love. 

Note also the divine command. Paul bases his 
action on a prophecy as to the Messiah. But the 
relation on which prophecy insists between the per- 
sonal servant of Jehovah and the collective Israel, is 
such that the great office of being the Light of the 
world devolves from Him on it and the true Israel is 
to be a light to the Gentiles. These very Jews in 
Antioch, lashing themselves into fury because Gentiles 
were to be offered a share in Israel’s blessings, ought 
to have been discharging this glorious function. Their 
failure showed that they were no parts of the real 
Israel. No doubt the two missionaries left the syna- 


48 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx. xm. ~ 


gogue as they spoke, and, as the door swung behind 
them, it shut hope out and unbelief in. The air was 
fresh outside, and eager hearts welcomed the word. 






Very beautifully is the gladness of the Gentile hearers — 


set in contrast with the temper of the Jews. It is 
strange news to heathen hearts that there is a God 
who loves them, and a divine Christ who has died for 
them. The experience of many a missionary follows 
Paul’s here. 


‘As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.’ ; 


The din of many a theological battle has raged round 


these words, the writer of which would have probably — 


needed a good deal of instruction before he could have — 
been made to understand what the fighting was about. ~ 


But it is to be noted that there is evidently intended a 
contrast between the envious Jews and the gladly 
receptive Gentiles, which is made more obvious by the 
repetition of the words ‘eternal life. It would seem 
much more relevant and accordant with the context to 
understand the word rendered ‘ ordained’ as meaning 
‘adapted’ or ‘fitted,’ than to find in it a reference to 
divine foreordination. Such a meaning is legitimate, 
and strongly suggested by the context. The reference 
then would be to the ‘frame of mind of the heathen, 
and not to the decrees of God.’ 

The only points needing notice in the further develop- 
ments at Antioch are the agents employed by the Jews, 
the conduct of the Apostles, and the sweet little picture 
of the converts. As to the former, piously inclined 
women in a heathen city would be strongly attracted 
by Judaism and easily lend themselves to the impres- 
sions of their teachers. We know that many women 
of rank were at that period powerfully affected in this 
manner; and if a Rabbi could move a Gentile of in- 


vs. 44-52; 1-7] REJECTERS: RECEIVERS 49 


fluence through whispers to the Gentile’s wife, he would 
not be slow to do it. The ease with which the Jews 
stirred up tumults everywhere against the Apostle 


_ indicates their possession of great influence; and their 


willingness to be hand in glove with heathen for so 
laudable an object as crushing one of their own people 
who had become a heretic, measures the venom of 


their hate and the depth of their unscrupulousness. 


ca ls b 


The Apostles had not to fear violence, as their 
enemies were content with turning them out of 
Antioch and its neighbourhood; but they obeyed 
Christ's command, shaking off the dust against them, 
in token of renouncing all connection. The significant 
act is a trace of early knowledge of Christ’s words, 
long before the date of our Gospels. 

While the preachers had to leave the little flock in 
the midst of wolves, there was peace in the fold. Like 
the Ethiopian courtier when deprived of Philip, the new 
believers at Antioch found that the withdrawal of the 
earthly brought the heavenly Guide. ‘They were 
filled with joy. What! left ignorant, lonely, ringed 
about with enemies, how could they be glad? Because 
they were filled ‘with the Holy Ghost.’ Surely joy in 
such circumstances was no less supernatural a token of 
His presence than rushing wind or parting flames or 
lips opened to speak with tongues. God makes us 
lonely that He may Himself be our Companion. 

It was a long journey to the great city of Iconium. 
According to some geographers, the way led over 
Savage mountains; but the two brethren tramped 
along, with an unseen Third between them, and that — 


_ Presence made the road light. They had little to cheer 


them in their prospects, if they looked with the eye of 


_ sense; but they were in good heart, and the remem- 


V OL. II. D 






brance of Antioch did not embitter or discourage 
them. Straight to the synagogue, as before, they went. 
It was their best introduction to the new field. There, 
if we take the plain words of Acts xiv. 1, they found a 
new thing, ‘Greeks,’ heathens pure and simple, not 
Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews, nor even proselytes, 
in the synagogue. This has seemed so singular that 


50 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx xm, 


efforts have been made to impose another sense on the ~ 
words, or to suppose that the notice of Greeks, as well — 


as Jews, believing is loosely appended to the statement 
of the preaching in the synagogue, omitting notice of 
wider evangelising. But it is better to accept than 


to correct our narrative, as we know nothing of the © 


circumstances that may have led to this presence of 
Greeks in the synagogue. Some modern setters of the 
Bible writers right would be all the better for remem- 
bering occasionally that improbable things have a 
strange knack of happening. 

The usual results followed the preaching of the 
Gospel. The Jews were again the mischief-makers, 
and, with the astuteness of their race, pushed the 
Gentiles to the front, and this time tried a new piece of 
annoyance, ‘The brethren’ bore the brunt of the 
attack; that is, the converts, not Paul and Barnabas. 


It was a cunning move to drop suspicions into the © 


a 


minds of influential townsmen, and so to harass, not © 


the two strangers, but theiradherents. The calculation 
was that that would stop the progress of the heresy by 
making its adherents uncomfortable, and would also 
wound the teachers through their disciples. 

But one small element had been left out of the cal- 
culation —the sort of men these teachers were; and 
another factor which had not hitherto appeared came 
into play, and upset the whole scheme. Paul and 





vs. 44-52; 1-7] REJECTERS: RECEIVERS 51 


Barnabas knew when to retreat and when to stand 
their ground. This time they stood; and the opposi- 
tion launched at their friends was the reason why they 
didso. ‘Long time therefore abode they. If their own 
safety had been in question, they might have fled; but 
they could not leave the men whose acceptance of their 
message had brought them into straits. But behind the 
two bold speakers stood ‘the Lord,’ Christ Himself, the 


_ true Worker. Men who live in Him are made bold by 


‘9 


their communion with Him, and He witnesses for those 
who witness for Him. 

Note the designation of the Gospel as ‘the word of 
His grace.’ It has for its great theme the condescend- 
ing, giving love of Jesus. Its subject is grace; its origin 
is grace; its gift is grace. Observe, too, that the same 
connection between boldness of speech and signs and 
wonders is found in Acts iv. 29, 30. Courageous speech 
for Christ is ever attended by tokens of His power, 
and the accompanying tokens of His power make the 
speech more courageous. 

The normal course of events was pursued. Faithful 
preaching provoked hostility, which led to the alliance 
of discordant elements, fused for a moment by a com- 
mon hatred—alas! that enmity to God’s truth should 
be often a more potent bond of union than love!— 
and then toa wise withdrawal from danger. Sometimes 


_ it is needful to fling away life for Jesus; but if it can 


be preserved without shirking duty, it is better to flee 
than to die. An unnecessary martyr is a suicide. The 
Christian readiness to be offered has nothing in com- 
mon with fanatical carelessness of life, and still less 
with the morbid longing for martyrdom which dis- 
figures some of the most pathetic pages of the Church’s 
history. Paul living to preach in the regions beyond 





52 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ox. xm. 


was more useful than Paul dead in a street riot in 
Iconium. A heroic prudence should ever accom- 
pany a trustful daring, and both are best learned in 
communion with Jesus. 


UNWORTHY OF LIFE 


*,.. Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting 
life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.’—Acts xiii. 46. 
So ended the first attempt on Paul's great missionary 
journey to preach to the Jews. It is described at great 
length and the sermon given in full because it is the 
first. A wonderful sermon it was; touching all keys of 


feeling, now pleading almost with tears, now flashing — 


with indignation, now calmly dealing with Scripture 
prophecies, now glowing as it tells the story of Christ's 
death for men. It melted some of the hearers, but the 
most were wrought up to furious passion—and with 
characteristic vehemence, like their ancestors and their 
descendants through long dreary generations, fell to 
‘contradicting and blaspheming. We can see the 
scene in the synagogue, the eager faces, the vehement 
gestures, the hubbub of tongues, the bitter words that 
stormed round the two in the midst, Barnabas like 
Jupiter, grave, majestic, and venerable; Paul like 
Mercury, agile, mobile, swift of speech. They bore the 
brunt of the fury till they saw it to be hopeless to try 
to calm it, and then departed with these remarkable 
words. 

They are even more striking if we notice that ‘judge’ 
here may be used in its fulllegal sense. It is not merely 
equivalent to consider, for these Jews by no means 


v. 46] UNWORTHY OF LIFE 58 


thought themselves unworthy of eternal life, but it 
means, ‘ ye adjudge and pass sentence on yourselves to 
be. Their rejection of the message was a self-pro- 
nounced sentence. It proved them to be, and made 
them, ‘unworthy of eternal life. There are two or 
three very striking thoughts to be gathered from these 
words which I would dwell on now. 

I. What constitutes worthiness and unworthiness. 

There are two meanings to the word ‘worthy’ 
—deserving or fit. They run into each other and yet 
they may be kept quite apart. For instance you may 
say of a man that ‘he is worthy’ to be something or 
other, for which he is obviously qualified, not thinking 
at all whether he deserves it or not. 

Now in the first of these senses—we are all unworthy 
of eternal life. That is just to state in other words the 
tragic truth of universal sinfulness. The natural out- 
come and issue of the course which all men follow is 
death. But yet there are men who are fit for and cap- 
able of eternal life. Who they are and what fitness 
is can only be ascertained when we rightly understand 
what eternal lifeis. It is not merely future blessedness 
or asynonym fora vulgar heaven. That is the common 
notion of its meaning. Men think of that future asa 
blessed state to which God can admit anybody if He 
will, and, as He is good, will admit pretty nearly every- 
body. But eternal life isa present possession as well 
as a future one, and passing by its deeper aspects, 
it includes— 

Deliverance from evil habits and desires. 

Purity, and love of all good and fair things. 

Communion with God. 

As well as forgiveness and removal of punish- 
ment. 


54 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx. xm. 


What then are the qualifications making a man 
worthy of, in the sense of fit for, such a state? 

(a) To know oneself to be unworthy. 

He who judges himself to be worthy is unworthy. 
He who knows himself to be unworthy is worthy. 

The first requisite is consciousness of sin, leading to 
repentance. 

(6) To abandon striving to make oneself worthy. 

By ourselves we never can doso. Many of us think 
that we must do our best, and then God will do the 
rest. 


There must be the entire cessation of all attempt to — 


work out by our own efforts characters that would 
entitle us to eternal life. 

(c) To be willing to accept life on God’s terms. 

As a mere gift. 

(d) To desire it. 

God cannot give it to any one who does not want it. 
He cannot force His gifts on us. 

This then is the worthiness. 

II. How we pass sentence on ourselves as unworthy. 

It is quite clear that ‘judge’ here does not mean con- 
sider, for asense of unworthiness is not the reason which 
keeps men away from the Gospel. Rather, as we have 
seen, a proud belief in our worthiness keeps very many 
away. But ‘judge’ here means ‘adjudicate’ or ‘pro- 
nounce sentence on,’ and worthy means fit, qualified. 

Consider then— 

(a) That our attitude to the Gospel is a revelation of 
our deepest selves. 

The Gospel is a ‘ discerner of thoughts and intents of 
the heart.’ It judges us here and now, and by their 
attitude to it ‘the thoughts of many hearts shal] be 
revealed,’ 





a ee 


Se 


Sg ee ee 








‘ 
% 
‘ 


v.46) UNWORTHY OF LIFE 55 


(6) That our rejection of it plainly shows that we have 
not the qualifications for eternal life. 

No doubt some men are kept from accepting Christ 
by intellectual doubts and difficulties, but even these 
would alter their whole attitude to Him if they hada 
profound consciousness of sin, and a desire for deliver- 
ance from it. 

But with regard to the great bulk of its hearers, no 
doubt the hindrance is chiefly moral. Many causes may 
combine to produce the absence of qualification. The 
excuses in the parable—farm, oxen, wife—all amount 
to engrossment with this present world, and such 
absorption in the things seen and temporal deadens 
desire. So the Gospel preached excites no longings, and 
a man hears the offer of salvation without one motion 
of his heart towards it, and thus proclaims himself 
‘unworthy of eternal life.’ 

But the great disqualification is the absence of all 
consciousness of sin. This is the very deepest reason 
which keeps men away from Christ. 

How solemn a thing the preaching and hearing of 
this word is! 

How possible for you to make yourselves fit! 

’ How simple the qualification! We have but to know 
ourselves sinners and to trust Jesus and then we ‘shall 
be counted worthy to obtain that world and the resur- 
rection from the dead.’ Then we shall be ‘worthy to 
escape and to stand before the Son of Man. Then 
shall we be ‘worthy of this calling,’ and the Judge 
himself shall say: ‘They shall walk with Me in white, 


for they are worthy.’ 





‘FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST’ 
* And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.’—Aors xiii. 52. 


THAT joy was as strange as a garden full of flowers 
would be in bitter winter weather. For everything 
in the circumstances of these disciples tended to make 
them sad. They had been but just won from heathen- 
ism, and they were raw, ignorant, unfit to stand 
alone. Paul and Barnabas, their only guides, had 
been hunted out of Antioch by a mob, and it would 
have been no wonder if these disciples had felt as if 
they had been taken on to the ice and then left, when 
they most needed a hand to steady them. Luke em- 
phasises the contrast between what might have been 
expected, and what was actually the case, by that 
eloquent ‘and’ at the beginning of our verse, which 
links together the departure of the Apostles and the 
joy of the disciples. But the next words explain the 
paradox. These new converts, left in a great heathen 
city, with no helpers, no guides, to work out as best 
they might a faith of which they had but newly 
received the barest rudiments, were ‘full of joy’ 
because they were ‘full of the Holy Ghost.’ 

Now that latter phrase, so striking here, is charac- 
teristic of this book of the Acts, and especially of its 
earlier chapters, which are all, as it were, throbbing 
with wonder at the new gift which Pentecost had 
brought. Let me for a moment, in the briefest possible 
fashion, try to recall to you the instances of its 
occurrence, for they are very significant and very 
important. 


You remember how at Pentecost ‘all’ the disciples 
66 


a 3 


v.52] ‘FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST’ 57 


were ‘filled with the Holy Ghost... Then when the 
first persecution broke over the Church, Peter before 
the Council is ‘ filled with the Holy Spirit,’ and therefore 
he beards them, and ‘speaks with all boldness. When 
he goes back to the Church and tells them of the 
threatening cloud that was hanging over them, they 
too are filled with the Holy Spirit, and therefore 
rise buoyantly upon the tossing wave, as a ship might 
do when it passes the bar and meets the heaving 
sea. Then again the Apostles lay down the qualifica- 
tions for election to the so-called office of deacon as 
being that the men should be ‘full of the Holy Ghost 
and wisdom’; and in accordance therewith, we read 
of the first of the seven, Stephen, that he was ‘full 
of faith and of the Holy Ghost,’ and therefore ‘full 
of grace and power. When he stood before the 
Council he was ‘full of the Holy Ghost,’ and therefore 
looked up into heaven and saw it opened, and the 
Christ standing ready to help him. In like manner we 
read of Barnabas that he ‘was a good man, full of 
the Holy Ghost and of faith.” And finally we read 
in our text that these new converts, left alone in 
Antioch of Pisidia, were ‘full of joy and of the Holy 
Ghost.’ 

Now these are the principal instances, and my pur- 
pose now is rather to deal with the whole of these 
instances of the occurrence of this remarkable expres- 
sion than with the one which I have selected as a 
text, because I think that they teach us great truths 
bearing very closely on the strength and joyfulness 
of the Christian life which are far too much neglected, 
obscured, and forgotten by us to-day. 

I wish then to point you, first, to the solemn et 
that is here, as to what should be— 


58 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [en. xm. 


I. The experience of every Christian. 

Note the two things, the universality and the abund- 
ance of this divine gift. I have often had occasion to 
say to you, and so I merely repeat it again in the 
briefest fashion, that we do not grasp the central blessed- 


ness of the Christian faith unless, beyond forgiveness — 


and acceptance, beyond the mere putting away of the 
dread of punishment either here or hereafter, we see 
that the gift of God in Jesus Christ is the communica- 
tion to every believing soul of that divine life which 
is bestowed by the Spirit of Christ granted to every 
believing heart. But I would have you notice how 
the universality of the gift is unmistakably taught 
us by the instances which I have briefly gathered to- 
gether in my previous remarks. It was no official class 
on which, on the day of Pentecost, the tongues of 
fire fluttered down. It was to the whole Church that 
courage to front the persecutor was imparted. When 
in Samaria the preaching of Philip brought about the 
result of the communication of the Holy Spirit, it was 
to all the believers that it was granted, and when, in 
the Roman barracks at Czesarea, Cornelius and his 
companion listened to Peter, it was upon them all that 
that Divine Spirit descended. 

I suppose I need not remind you of how, if we pass 
beyond this book ofthe Acts into the Epistles of Paul, 
his affirmations do most emphatically insist upon the 
fact that ‘we are all made to drink into one Spirit’; 
and so convinced is he of the universality of the 
possession of that divine life by every Christian, that 
he does not hesitate to say that ‘if any man have 
not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His,’ and to clear 
away all possibility of misunderstanding the depth and 
wonderfulness of the gift, he further adds in another 





‘ 





me 


= atl a7 Ne Pine 


i. 


ee, 


Ee ae pen 


= 


oO = at oe”, 


-—- 


> 


a ee ae 


a Se ee ee 





v.52] ‘FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST’ 59 


place, ‘Know ye not that the Spirit is in you, except 
ye be reprobates?’ Similarly another of the New 
Testament writers declares, in the broadest terms, that 
‘this spake he of the Holy Spirit, which Apostles? 
no; office-bearers? no; ordained men? no; distin- 
guished and leading men? No—‘they that believe on 
Him should receive.’ Christianity is the true demo- 
eracy, because it declares that upon all, handmaidens 
and servants, young men and old men, there comes 
the divine gift. The world thinks of a divine inspira- 
tion in a more or less superficial fashion, as touching 
only the lofty summits, the great thinkers and teachers 
and artists and mighty men of light and leading of the 
race. The Old Testament regarded prophets and kings, 
and those who were designated to important offices, as 
the possessors of the Divine Spirit. But Christianity 
has seen the sun rising so high in the heavens that the 
humblest floweret, in the deepest valley, basks in its 
beams and opens to its light. ‘We have all been made 


_ to drink into the one Spirit. 


Let me remind you too of how, from the usage of 
this book, as well as from the rest of the New Testa- 
ment teaching, there rises the other thought of the 
abundance of the gift. ‘Full of the Holy Spirit’—the 
cup is brimming with generous wine. Not that that 
fulness is such as to make inconsistencies impossible, 
as, alas, the best of us know. The highest condition 
for us is laid down in the sad words which yet have 
triumph in their sadness—‘The flesh lusteth against 
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh’ But 
whilst the fulness is not such as to exclude the need 


of conflict, it is such as to bring the certainty of 


victory. 
Again if we turn to the instances to which I have 





60 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz. xn. 


already referred, we shall find that they fall into two 
classes, which are distinguished in the original by a 
slight variation in the form of the words employed. 
Some instances refer to a habitual possession of an 
abundant spiritual life moulding the character con- 
stantly, as in the cases of Stephen and Barnabas. 
Others refer rather to occasional and special influxes 
of special power on account of special circumstances, 
and drawn forth by special exigencies, as when there 
poured into Peter’s heart the Divine Spirit that made 
him bold before the Council; or as when the dying 
martyr’s spirit was flooded with a new clearness of 
vision that pierced the heavens and beheld the Christ. 
So then there may be and ought to be, in each of us, 
a fulness of the Spirit, up to the edge of our capacity, 
and yet of such a kind as that it may be reinforced and 
increased when special needs arise. 

Not only so, but that which fills me to-day should 
not fill me to-morrow, because; as in earthly love, so 
in heavenly, no man can tell to what this thing shall 
grow. The more of fruition the more there will be 
of expansion, and the more of expansion the more of 
desire, and the more of desire the more of capacity, 
and the more of capacity the more of possession. So, 
brethren, the man who receives a spark of the divine 
life, through his most rudimentary and tremulous 
faith, if he is a faithful steward of the gift that is 
given to him, will find that it grows and grows, and 
that there is no limit to its growth, and that in its 
limitless growth there lies the surest prophecy of an 
eternal growth in the heavens. 

A universal gift, that is to say,a gift to each of us 
if we are Christians, an abundant gift that fills the 
whole nature of a man, according to the measure of 


\ 
\ 


\ 





ee he li oe 


rw Se ee. Pere See "ee PS eee _—— 


‘is el TN i ee Sie 8 Fe) i i oe A el a 
: > - ; 


v.52] ‘FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST’ 61 


his present power to receive—that is the ideal, that 


is what God means, that is what these first believers 


had. It did not make them perfect, it did not save 


: them from faults or from errors, but it was real, it was 
influential, it was moulding their characters, it was 


progressive. And that is the ideal for all Christians. 
Is it our actual? Weare meant to be full of the Holy 
Ghost. Ah! how many of us have never realised that 
there is such a thing as being thus possessed with a 
divine life, partly because we do not understand that 
such a fulness will not be distinguishable from our own 
self, except by bettering of the works of self, and partly 
because of other reasons which I shall have to touch 
upon presently! Brethren, we may, every one of us, 
be filled with the Spirit. Let each of us ask, ‘Am I? 
and if I am not, why this emptiness in the presence of 
such abundance?’ 

And now let me ask you to look, in the second 
place, at what we gather from these instances as to— 

II. The results of that universal, abundant life. 

Do not let us run away with the idea that the 
New Testament, or any part of it, regards miracles 
and tongues and the like as being the normal and 
chiefest gifts of that Divine Spirit. People read 
this book of the Acts of the Apostles and, averse 
from the supernatural, exaggerate the extent to 
which the primitive gift of the Holy Spirit was 
manifested by signs and wonders, tongues of fire, 
and so on. We have only to look at the instances 
to which I have already referred to see that far 


_ more lofty and far more conspicuous than any such 


external and transient manifestations, which yet have 
their place, are the permanent and inward results, 
moulding character, and making men. And Paul's 





62 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ex xu. _ 


First Epistle to the Corinthians goes as far in the 
way of setting the moral and spiritual effects of the — 
divine influence above the merely miraculous and ex- 
ternal ones, as the most advanced opponent of the 
supernatural could desire. 

Let us look, and it can only be briefly, at the various 
results which are presented in the instances to which 
I have referred. The most general expression for all, 
whichis the result of the Divine Spirit dwelling in a man, 
is that it makes him good. Look at one of the instances 
to which we have referred. ‘ Barnabas was a good man’ 
—was he? How came he to be so? Because he was 
‘full of the Holy Ghost.’ And how came he to be ‘ full 
of the Holy Ghost’? Because he was ‘full of faith. 
Get the divine life into you, and that will make you 
good; and, brethren, nothing else will. It is like the 


bottom heat in a green-house, which makes all the — 


plants that are there, whatever their orders, grow and 
blossom and be healthy and strong. Therein is the 
difference between Christian morality and the world’s 
ethics. They may not differ much, they do in some 
respects, in their ideal of what constitutes goodness, 
but they differ in this, that the one says, ‘ Be good, be 
good, be good!’ but, like the Pharisees of old, puts out not 
a finger to help a man to bear the burdens that it lays 
upon him. The other says, ‘Be good, but it also says, 
‘take this and it will make you good.’ And so the one 
is Gospel and the other is talk, the one is a word of 
good tidings, and the other is a beautiful speculation, 
or acrushing commandment that brings death rather 
than life. ‘If there had been a law given which could 
have given life, verily righteousness had been by the 
law. But since the clearest laying down of duty brings 
us no nearer to the performance of duty, we need and, 


v.52] ‘FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST’ 63 


thank God! we have, a gift bestowed which invests with 
power. He in whom the ‘Spirit of Holiness’ dwells, 
and he alone, will be holy. The result of the life of 
God in the heart is a life growingly like God’s, mani- 
fested in the world. 

Then again let me remind you of how, from another 
of our instances, there comes another thought. The 
result of this majestic, supernatural, universal, abun- 
dant, divine life is practical sagacity in the commonest 
affairs of life. ‘Look ye out from among you seven 
men, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom. What 
to do? To meet wisely the claims of suspicious and 
jealous poverty, and. to distribute fairly a little money. 
That was all. And are you going to invoke such a 
lofty gift as this, to do nothing grander than that? 
Yes. Gravitation holds planets in their orbits, and 
keeps grains of dust in their places. And one result 
of the inspiration of the Almighty, which is granted 
to Christian people, is that they will be wise for 
the little affairs of life. But Stephen was also ‘full 
of grace and power, two things that do not often go 
together—grace, gentleness, loveliness, graciousness, on 
the one side, and strength on the other, which divorced, 
make wild work of character, and which united, make 
men like God. So if we desire our lives to be full of 
sweetness and light and beauty, the best way is to get 
the life of Christ into them; and if we desire our lives 
not to be made placid and effeminate by our cult of 
graciousness and gracefulness, but to have their beauty 


_ stiffened and strengthened by manly energy, then the 


best way is to get the life of the ‘strong Son of God, 
immortal love, into our lives. 

The same Stephen, ‘full of the Holy Ghost,’ looked 
up into heaven and saw the Christ. So one result of 





64 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xu. 


that abundant life, if we have it, will be that even 
though as with him, when he saw the heavens opened, 
there may be some smoke-darkened roof above our 
heads, we can look through all the shows of this vain 
world, and our purged eyes can behold the Christ. 
Again the disciples in our text ‘were full of joy, 
because ‘they were full of the Holy Spirit, and we, if 
we have that abundant life within us, shall not be 
dependent for our gladness on the outer world, but 
like explorers in the Arctic regions, even if we have 
to build a hut of snow, shall be warm within it when 
the thermometer is far below zero; and there will be 
light there when the long midnight is spread around 
the dwelling. So, dear friends, let us understand what 
is the main thing for a Christian to endeavour after, 
—not so much the cultivation of special graces as the 
deepening of the life of Christ in the spirit. 

We gather from some of these instances— 

III. The way by which we may be thus filled. 

We read that Stephen was ‘full of faith and of the 
Holy Spirit, and that Barnabas was ‘full of the Holy 
Ghost and of faith,’ and it is quite clear from the re- 
spective contexts that, though the order in which these 
fulnesses are placed is different in the two clauses, their 
relation to each other is the same. Faith is the con- 
dition of possessing the Spirit. And what do we mean 
in this connection by faith? I mean, first, a belief in 
the truth of the possible abiding of the divine Spirit 
in our spirits, a truth which the superficial Christianity 
of this generation sorely needs to have forced upon 
its consciousness far more than it has it. I mean 
aspiration and desire after; I mean confident expecta- 
tion of. Your wish measures your possession. You 
have as much of God as you desire. If you have no 





ee ee ee ae ee 


v. 52] DEIFIED AND STONED 65 


more, it is because you do not desire any more. The 
Christian people of to-day, many of whom are so 
empty of God, are in a very tragic sense, ‘full,’ because 
they have as much as they can take in. If you bring 
a tiny cup, and do not much care whether anything 
pours into it or not, you will get it filled, but you 
might have had a gallon vessel filled if you had chosen 
to bring it. Of course there are other conditions too. 
We have to use the life that is givenus. We have to 
see that we do not quench it by sin, which drives the 
dove of God from a man’s heart. But the great truth 
is that if I open the door of my heart by faith, Christ 
will come in, in His Spirit. If I take away the blinds 
the light will shine into the chamber. If I lift the 
sluice the water will pour in to drive my mill. If I 
deepen the channels, more of the water of life can 
flow into them, and the deeper I make them the fuller 
they will be. 

Brethren, we have wasted much time and effort in 
trying to mend our characters. Let us try to get that 
into them which willmendthem. And let us remember 
that, if we are full of faith, we shall be full of the Holy 
Spirit, and therefore full of wisdom, full of grace and 
power, full of goodness, full of joy, whatever our 
circumstances. And when death comes, though it may 
be in some cruel form, we shall be able to look up and 
see the opened heavens and the welcoming Christ. 


DEIFIED AND STONED 


* And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, 
saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of 
men. 12. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he 
was the chief speaker. 13. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their 
city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice 
with the people. i4. Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, 


VOL. Il. E 





66 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cen. x1v. — 


they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, 15. And saying, 
Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and 
preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which 
made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: 16. Who in 
times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. 17. Nevertheless he 
left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from 
heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. 18. And 
with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done 
sacrifice unto them. 19. And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and 
Iconinm, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of 
the city, supposing he had been dead. 20. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round 
about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed 
with Barnabas to Derbe. 21. And when they had preached the gospel to that 
city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and 
Antioch, 22. Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to con- 
tinue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the 
kingdom of God.’—Acts xiv. 11-22. 

THE scene at Lystra offers a striking instance of the 
impossibility of eliminating the miraculous element 
from this book. The cure of a lame man is the start- 
ing-point of the whole story. Without it the rest is 
motiveless and inexplicable. There can be no explosion 
without a train and a fuse. The miracle, and the 
miracle only, supplies these. We may choose between 
believing and disbelieving it, but the rejection of the 
supernatural does not make this book easier to accept, 
but utterly chaotic. 

I. We have, first, the burst of excited wonder which 
floods the crowd with the conviction that the two 
Apostles are incarnations of deities. It is difficult to 
grasp the indications of locality in the story, but 
probably the miracle was wrought in some crowded 
place, perhaps the forum. At all events, it was in full 
view of ‘the multitudes, and they were mostly of the 
lower orders, as their speaking in ‘the speech of 

ois 
Lycaonia’ suggests. 

This half-barbarous crowd had the ancient faith in 
the gods unweakened, and the legends, which had 
become dim to pure Greek and Roman, some of which 
had originated in their immediate neighbourhood, still 


found full credence among them. A Jew’s first 


vs.11-22} DEIFIED AND STONED 67 


thought on seeing a miracle was, ‘by the prince of 
the devils’; an average Greek’s or Roman’s was ‘sor- 
cery’; these simple people’s, like many barbarous tribes 
to which white men have gone with the marvels of 
modern science, was ‘the gods have come down’; our 
modern superior person’s, on reading of one, is ‘ hallu- 
cination, or ‘a mistake of an excited imagination.’ 
Perhaps the cry of the multitudes at Lystra gets 
nearer the heart of the thing than those others. For 
the miracle is a witness of present divine power, and 
though the worker of it is not an incarnation of 
divinity, ‘God zs with him,’ 

But that joyful conviction, which shot through the 
crowd, reveals how deep lies the longing for the mani- 
festation of divinity in the form of humanity, and how 
natural it is to believe that, if there is a divine being, 
he is sure to draw near to us poor men, and that in 


_ our own likeness. Then is the Christian doctrine of 


the Incarnation but one more of the many reachings 
out of the heart to paint a fair picture of the fulfilment 


of its longings? Well, since it is the only such that 


ee 


ere 


ans 8 Ct ag ter A 


= 


is alleged to have taken place in historic times, and 
the only one that comes with any body of historic 
evidence, and the only one that brings with it trans- 


_ forming power, and since to believe in a God, and also 


to believe that He has never broken the awful silence, 
nor done anything to fulfil a craving which He has set 
in men’s hearts, is absurd, it is reasonable to answer, 
No. ‘The gods are come down in the likeness of men’ 
is a wistful confession of need, and a dim hope of its 


supply. ‘The Word became fiesh, and dwelt among 
us’ is the supply. 


Barnabas was the older man, and his very silence 


_ suggested his superior dignity. So he was taken for 





68 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {cx. xv. 


Jupiter (Zeus in the Greek), and the younger man for 
his inferior, Mercury (Hermes in the Greek), ‘the 
messenger of the gods.’ Clearly the two missionaries — 
did not understand what the multitudes were shouting © 
in their ‘barbarous’ language, or they would have — 
intervened. Perhaps they had left the spot before the — 
excitement rose to its height, for they knew nothing ~ 
of the preparations for the sacrifice till they ‘heard of’ — 
it, and then they ‘sprang forth, which implies that 
they were within some place, possibly their lodging. 

If we could be sure what ‘ gates’ are meant in verse — 
13, the course of events would be plainer. Were they — 
those of the city, in which case the priest and procession ~ 
would be coming from the temple outside the walls? — 
or those of the temple itself? or those of the Apostles’ 
lodging? Opinions differ, and the material for decid-— 
ing is lacking. At all events, whether from sharing 
in the crowd’s enthusiasm, or with an eye to the 
reputation of his shrine, the priest hurriedly procured - 
oxen for a sacrifice, which one reading of the text 
specifies as an ‘additional’ offering—that is, over and 
above the statutory sacrifices. Is it a sign of haste 
that the § garlands, which should have been twined — 
round the oxen’s horns, are mentioned separately? If 
so, we get a lively picture of the exultant hurry of the — 
crowd. 

II. The Apostles are as deeply moved as the multi-_ 
tude is, but by what different emotions! The horror 
of idolatry, which was their inheritance from a 
hundred generations, flamed up at the thought of 
themselves being made objects of worship. They had 
met many different sorts of receptions on this journey, 
but never before anything like this. Opposition and 
threats left them calm, but this stirred them to the 


wieuaiie 


vs.11-22]} DEIFIED AND STONED 69 


depths. ‘Scoff at us, fight with us, maltreat us, and 
we will endure; but do not make gods of us.’ I do 
not know that their ‘successors’ have always felt 
exactly so. 

In verse 14 Barnabas is named first, contrary to the 
order prevailing since Paphos, the reason being that 
the crowd thought him the superior. The remon- 
strance ascribed to both, but no doubt spoken by Paul, 
contains nothing that any earnest monotheist, Jew or 
Gentile philosopher, might not have said. The purpose 
of it was not to preach Christ, but to stop the sacrifice. 
It is simply a vehemently earnest protest against 
idolatry, and a proclamation of one living God. The 


comparison with the speech in Athens is interesting, 


as showing Paul’s exquisite felicity in adapting his 
style to his audience. There is nothing to the peasants 
of Lycaonia about poets, no argumentation about the 
degradation of the idea of divinity by taking images 
as its likeness, no wide view of the course of history, 
no glimpse of the mystic thought that all creatures 
live and move in Him. All that might suit the delicate 
ears of Athenians, but would have been wasted in 
Lystra amidst the tumultuous crowd. But we have 
instead of these the fearless assertion, flung in the face 
of the priest of Jupiter, that idols are ‘vanities,’ as 


_ Paul had learned from Isaiah and Jeremiah; the plain 


declaration of the one God, ‘living,’ and not like these 
inanimate images; of His universal creative power; 
and the earnest exhortation to turn to Him. 

In verse 16 Paul meets an objection which rises in 
his mind as likely to be springing in his hearers’: ‘If 
there is such a God, why have we never heard of Him 
till now?’ That is quite in Paul’s manner. The 
answer is undeveloped, as compared with the Athenian 





70 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx x1v. 


address or with Romans i. But there is couched in ~ 


verse 16 a tacit contrast between ‘ the generations gone _ 
by’ and the present, which is drawn out in the speech ; 
on Mars Hill: ‘but now commandeth all men every- 
where to repent, and also a contrast between the ~ 
‘nations’ left to walk in their own ways, and Israel — 
to whom revelation had been made. The place and q 
the temper of the listeners did not admit of enlarging 
on such matters. 

But there was a plain fact, which was level to every 
peasant’s apprehension, and might strike home to the 


rustic crowd. God had left ‘the nations to walk in — 


their own ways, and yet not altogether. That thought 
is wrought out in Romansi.,and the difference between 
its development there and here is instructive. Benefi- 


cence is the sign-manual of heaven. The orderly — 
sequence of the seasons, the rain from heaven, the 


seat of the gods from which the two Apostles were — 
thought to have come down, the yearly miracle of — 
harvest, and the gladness that it brings—all these are 
witnesses to a living Person moving the processes of 
the universe towards a beneficent end for man. 

In spite of all modern impugners, it still remains true ~ 
that the phenomena of ‘ nature,’ their continuity, their — 
co-opération, and their beneficent issues, demand the 
recognition of a Person with a loving purpose moving 
them all. ‘ Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness; 
and Thy paths drop fatness.’ 

III. The malice of the Jews of Antioch is remarkable. 
Not content with hounding the Apostles from that 
city, they came raging after them to Lystra, where 
there does not appear to have been a synagogue, 
since we hear only of their stirring up the ‘multi- — 
tudes, The mantle of Saul had fallen on them, 


vs. 11-22] DEIFIED AND STONED 71 


and they were now ‘persecuting’ him‘ even unto 
strange cities.’ 

No note is given of the time between the attempted 
sacrifice and the accomplished stoning, but probably 
some space intervened. Persuading the multitudes, 
however fickle they were, would take some time; and 
indeed one ancient text of Acts has an expansion of 
the verse: ‘They persuaded the multitudes to depart 
from them [the Apostles], saying that they spake no- 
thing true, but lied in everything.’ 

No doubt some time elapsed, but few emotions are 
more transient than such impure religious excitement 
as the crowd had felt, and the ebb is as great as the 
flood, and the oozy bottom laid bare is foul. Popular 
favourites in other departments have to experience 
the same fate—one day, ‘roses, roses, all the way’; 
the next, rotten eggs and curses. Other folks than 
the ignorant peasants at Lystra have had devout 
emotion surging over them and leaving them dry. 

Who are ‘they’ who stoned Paul? Grammatically, 
the Jews, and probably it was so. They hated him so 
much that they themselves began the stoning; but no 
doubt the mob, which is always cruel, because it needs 
strong excitement, lent willing hands. Did Paul 
remember Stephen, as the stones came whizzing on 
him? It is an added touch of brutality that they 
dragged the supposed corpse out of the city, with no 
gentle hands, we may be sure. Perhaps it was flung 
down near the very temple ‘before the city,’ where 
the priest that wanted to sacrifice was on duty. 

The crowd, having wreaked their vengeance, melted 
away, but a handful of brave disciples remained, 
standing round the bruised, unconscious form, ready 
to lay it tenderly in some hastily dug grave. No 





72 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ([cx. xrv. 


previous mention of disciples has been made. The 
narrative of Acts does not profess to be complete, 
and the argument from its silence is precarious. 

Luke shows no disposition to easy belief in miracles. 
He does not know that Paul was dead; his medical 
skill familiarised him with protracted states of uncon- 
sciousness ; so all he vouches for is that Paul lay as if 
dead on some rubbish heap ‘without the camp,’ and 
that, with courage and persistence which were super- 
natural, whether his reviving was so or not, the man 
thus sorely battered went back to the city, and next 
day went on with his work, as if stoning was a trifle 
not to be taken account of. ; 

The Apostles turned at Derbe, and coming back on 
their outward route, reached Antioch, encouraging the 
new disciples, who had now to be left truly like shep- 
herdless sheep among wolves. They did not encourage 
them by making light of the dangers waiting them, 
but they plainly set before them the law of the 
Kingdom, which they had seen exemplified in Paul, 
that we must suffer if we would reign with the King. 
That ‘we’ in verse 22 is evidently quoted from Paul, 
and touchingly shows how he pointed to his own 
stoning as what they too must be prepared to suffer. 
It is a thought frequently recurring in his letters. It 
remains true in all ages, though the manner of suffer- 
ing varies. 


DREAM AND REALITY 
‘The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.’—Aors xiv. Il. 


THIs was the spontaneous instinctive utterance of 
simple villagers when they saw a deed of power and 


-“) oe Ae 


v. 11] DREAM AND REALITY 73 


kindness. Many an English traveller and settler among 
rude people has been similarly honoured. And in 
Lycaonia the Apostles were close upon places that 
were celebrated in Greek mythology as having wit- 
nessed the very two gods, here spoken of, wandering 
among the shepherds and entertained with modest 
hospitality in their huts. 

The incident is a very striking and picturesque 
one. The shepherd people standing round, the sudden 
flash of awe and yet of gladness which ran through 
them, the tumultuous outery, which, being in their rude 
dialect, was unintelligible to the Apostles till it was 
interpreted by the appearance of the priest of Jupiter 
with oxen and garlands for offerings, the glimpse of the 
two Apostles—the older, graver, venerable Barnabas, 
the younger, more active, ready-tongued Paul, whom 
their imaginations converted into the Father of gods 
and men, and the herald Mercury, who were already 
associated in local legends; the priest, eager to gain 
credit for his temple ‘before the city,’ the lowing oxen, 
and the vehement appeal of the Apostles, make a pic- 
ture which is more vividly presented in the simple 
narrative than even in the cartoon of the great painter 
whom the narrative has inspired. 

But we have not to deal with the picturesque element 
alone. The narratives of Scripture are representative 
because they are so penetrating and true. They go tothe 
very heart of the men and things which they describe: 
and hence the words and acts which they record are 
found to contain the essential characteristics of whole 
classes of men, and the portrait of an individual be- 
comes that of a class. This joyful outburst of the 
people of Lycaonia gives utterance to one of the most 
striking and universal convictions of heathenism, and 





74 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz. x1v. 


stands in very close and intimate relations with that 
greatest of all facts in the history of the world, the 
Incarnation of the Eternal Word. That the gods come 
down in the likeness of men is the dream of heathenism. 
‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, is the 
sober, waking truth which meets and vindicates and 
transcends that cry. 

I. The heathen dream of incarnation. 

In all lands we find this belief in the appearance of the 
gods in human form. It inspired the art and poetry of 
Greece. Rome believed that gods had charged in front 
of their armies and given their laws. The solemn, 
gloomy religion of Egypt, though it worshipped animal 
forms, yet told of incarnate and suffering gods. The 
labyrinthine mythologies of the East have their long- 
drawn stories of the avatars of their gods floating many 
a rood on the weltering ocean of their legends. Tibet 
cherishes each living sovereign as a real embodiment 
of the divine. And the lowest tribes, in their degraded 
worship, have not departed so far from the common 
type but that they too have some faint echoes of the 
universal faith. 

Do these facts import anything at alltous? Are we 
to dismiss them as simply the products of a stage which 
we have left far behind, and to plume ourselves that 
we have passed out of the twilight ? 

Even if we listen to what comparative mythology has 
to say, it still remains to account for the tendency to 
shape legends of the earthly appearance of the gods; 
and we shall have to admit that, while they belong to 
an early stage of the world’s progress, the feelings which 
they express belong to all stages of it. 

Now I think we may note these thoughts as con- 
tained in this universal belief: 


v. 11] DREAM AND REALITY 75 


The consciousness of the need of divine help. 

The certainty of a fellowship between heaven and 
earth. 

The high ideal of the capacities and affinities of man. 

We may note further what were the general char- 
acteristics of these incarnations. They were transient, 
they were ‘docetic,’ as they are called—that is, they 
were merely apparent assumptions of human form 
which brought the god into no nearer or truer kindred 
with humanity, and they were, for the most part, for 
very self-regarding and often most immoral ends, the 
god’s personal gratification of very ungodlike passions 
and lust, or his winning victories for his favourites, or 
satisfying his anger by trampling on those who had 
incurred his very human wrath. 

II. The divine answer which transcends the human 
dream. 

We have to insist that the truth of the Incarnation 
is the corner-stone of Christianity. If that is struck 
out the whole fabric falls. Without it there may bea 
Christ who is the loftiest and greatest of men, but not 
the Christ who ‘saves His people from their sins. 

That being so, and Christianity having this feature 
in common with all the religions of men, how are we to 
account for the resemblance? Are we to listen to the 
rude solution which says, ‘ All lies alike’? Are we to 
see in it nothing but the operation of like tendencies, or 
rather illusions, of human thought—man’s own shadow 
projected on an illuminated mist? Are we to let the 
resemblance discredit the Christian message? Or are 
we to say that all these others are unconscious pro- 
phecies—man’s half-instinctive expression of his deep 
need and much misunderstood longing, and that the 
Christian proclamation that Jesus is ‘God manifest 





76 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz x1v. 


in the flesh’ is the trumpet-toned announcement of 
Heaven's answer to earth’s ery? 

Fairly to face that question is to go far towards 
answering it. For as soon as we begin to look steadily 
at the facts, we find that the differences between all 
these other appearances and the Incarnation are so 
great as to raise the presumption that their origins 
are different. The ‘ gods’ slipped on the appearance of 
humanity over their garment of deity in appearance 
only, and that for a moment. Jesus is ‘bone of our 
bone and flesh of our fiésh,’ and is not merely ‘found 
in fashion as a man,’ but is ‘in all points like as we 
are. And that garb of manhood He wears for ever, 
and in His heavenly glory is ‘ the Man Christ Jesus.’ 

But the difference between all these other appear- 
ances of gods and the Incarnation lies in the acts to 
which they and it respectively led, and the purposes 
for which they and it respectively took place. A god 
who came down to suffer, a god who came to die, a 
god who came to be the supreme example of all fair 
humanities, a god who came to suffer and to die that 
men might have life and be victors over sin—where is he 
in all the religions of the world? And does not the fact 
that Christianity alone sets before men such a God, 
such an Incarnation, for such ends, make the asser- 
tion a reasonable one, that the sources of the universal 
belief in gods who come down among men and of the 
Christian proclamation that the Eternal Word became 
flesh are not the same, but that these are men’s half- 
understood cries, and this is Heaven’s answer? 


— s.r 


all rit 


‘THE DOOR OF FAITH’ 


*And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they re- 

hearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of 
faith unto the Gentiles.’—Acts xiv. 27. 
THERE are many instances of the occurrence of this 
metaphor in the New Testament, but none is exactly 
like this. We read, for example, of ‘a great door and 
effectual’ being opened to Paul for the free ministry of 
the word; and to the angel of the Church in Philadel- 
phia, ‘He that openeth and none shall shut’ graciously 
says, ‘I have set before thee a door opened, which 
none can shut.’ But here the door is faith, that is to 
say faith is conceived of as the means of entrance for 
the Gentiles into the Kingdom, which, till then, Jews 
had supposed to be entered by hereditary rite. 

I. Faith is the means of our entrance into the 
Kingdom. 

The Jew thought that birth and the rite of cir- 
cumcision were the door, but the ‘rehearsing’ of the 
experiences of Paul and Barnabas on their | first 
missionary tour shattered that notion by the logic of 
facts. Instead of that narrow postern another door- 
way had been broken in the wall of the heavenly city, 
and it was wide enough to admit of multitudes entering. 
Gentiles had plainly come in. How had they come in? 
By believing in Jesus. Whatever became of previous 
exclusive theories, there was a fact that had to be 
taken into account. It distinctly proved that faith 
was ‘the gate of the Lord into which,’ not the circum- 
cised but the ‘righteous, who were righteous because 
believing, ‘should enter.’ 

We must not forget the other use of the metaphor, 

7 





78 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {[ca. xt1v. 


by our Lord Himself, in which He declares that He is 
the Door. The two representations are varying but 
entirely harmonious, for the one refers to the objective 
fact of Christ's work as making it possible that we 
should draw near to and dwell with God, and the other 
to our subjective appropriation of that possibility, and 
making it a reality in our own blessed experience. 

II. Faith is the means of God’s entrance into our 
hearts. 

We possess the mysterious and awful power of shut- 
ting God out of these hearts. And faith, which in one 
aspect is our means of entrance into the Kingdom of 
God, is, in another, the means of God’s entrance into 
us. The Psalm, which invokes the divine presence in 
the Temple, calls on the ‘everlasting doors’ to be ‘lifted 
up, and promises that then ‘the King of Glory will 
come in. And the voice of the ascended Christ, the 
King of Glory, knocking at the closed door, calls on us 
with our own hands to open the door, and promises 
that He ‘ will come in.’ 

Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians ‘that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts through faith, and there is 
no other way by which His indwelling is possible. 
Faith is not constituted the condition of that divine 
indwelling by any arbitrary appointment, as a sovereign 
might determine that he would enter a city by a 
certain route, chosen without any special reason from 
amongst many, but in the nature of things it is 
necessary that trust, and love which follows trust, 
and longing which follows love should be active in a 
soul if Christ is to enter in and abide there. 

III. Faith is the means of the entrance of the 
Kingdom into us. 

If Christ comes in He comes with His pierced hands 








,e 


v.27] BREAKING OUT OF DISCORD 79 


full of gifts. Through our faith we receive all spiritual 
blessings. But we must ever remember, what this 
metaphor most forcibly sets forth, that faith is but the 
means of entrance. It has no worth in itself, but is 
precious only because it admits the true wealth. The 
door is nothing. It is only anopening. Faith is the 
pipe that brings the water, the flinging wide the 
shutters that the light may flood the dark room, 
the putting oneself into the path of the electric circuit. 
Salvation is not arbitrarily connected with faith. It 
is not the reward of faith but the possession of what 
comes through faith, and cannot come in any other 
way. Our ‘hearts’ are ‘purified by faith, because 
faith admits into our hearts the life, and instals as 
dominant in them the powers, the motives, the Spirit, 
which purify. We are ‘saved by faith, for faith brings 
into our spirits the Christ who saves His people from 
their sins, when He abides in them and they abide in 
Him through their faith. 


THE BREAKING OUT OF DISCORD 


* And certain men which came down from Judza taught the brethren, and said, 
Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. 2, When 
therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, 
they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go 
up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. 3. And being 
brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, 
declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the 
brethren. 4. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the 
church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had 
done with them. 5. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which 
believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them 
to keep the law of Moses. 6. And the apostles and elders came together for to 
consider of this matter.’-— Acts xv. 1-6. 


THE question as to the conditions on which Gentiles 
could be received into Christian communion had already 
been raised by the case of Cornelius, but it became 





80 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xv. 


more acute after Paul’s missionary journey. The 
struggle between the narrower and broader views was 
bound to come toa head. Traces of the cleft between — 
Palestinian and Hellenist believers had appeared as 
far back as the ‘murmuring’ about the unfair neglect 
of the Hellenist widows in the distribution of relief, 
and the whole drift of things since had been to widen 
the gap. 

Whether the ‘certain men’ had a mission to the 
Church in Antioch or not, they had no mandate to lay 
down the law as they did. Luke delicately suggests 
this by saying that they ‘came down from Judza,’ 
rather than from Jerusalem. We should be fair to 
these men, and remember how much they had to say 
in defence of their position. They did not question 
that Gentiles could be received into the Church, but 
‘kept on teaching’ (as the word in the Greek implies) 
that the divinely appointed ordinance of circumcision 
was the ‘door’ of entrance. God had prescribed it, and 
through all the centuries since Moses, all who came into 
the fold of Israel had gone in by that gate. Where 
was the commandment to set it aside? Was not Paul 
teaching men to climb up some other way, and so 
blasphemously abrogating a divine law? 

No wonder that honest believers in Jesus as Messiah 
shrank with horror from such a revolutionary pro- 
cedure. The fact that they were Palestinian Jews, 
who had never had their exclusiveness rubbed off, as 
Hellenists like Paul and Barnabas had had, explains, 
and to some extent excuses, their position. And yet 
their contention struck a fatal blow at the faith, little 
as they meant it. Paul saw what they did not see— 
that if anything else than faith was brought in as 
necessary to knit men to Christ, and make them par- 


vs. 1-6] BREAKING OUT OF DISCORD 81 


takers of salvation, faith was deposed from its place, 
and Christianity sank back to be a religion of ‘ works.’ 
Experience has proved that anything whatever intro- 
duced as associated with faith ejects faith from its 
place, and comes to be recognised as the means of 
salvation. It must be faith or circumcision, it cannot 
be faith and circumcision. The lesson is needed to-day 
as much as in Antioch. The controversy started then 
is a perennial one, and the Church of the present needs 
Paul’s exhortation, ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not en- 
tangled again with the yoke of bondage.’ 

The obvious course of appealing to Jerusalem was 
taken, and it is noteworthy that in verse 2 the verb 
‘appointed’ has no specified subject. Plainly, however, 
it was the Church which acted, and so natural did that 
seem to Luke that he felt it unnecessary to say so. No 
doubt Paul concurred, but the suggestion is not said to 
have come from him. He and Barnabas might have 
asserted their authority, and declined to submit what 
they had done by the Spirit’s guidance to the decision 
of the Apostles, but they seek the things that make 
for peace, 

No doubt the other side was represented in the 
deputation. Jerusalem was the centre of unity, and 
remained so till its fall. The Apostles and elders were 
the recognised leaders of the Church. Elders here 
appear as holding a position of authority; the only 
previous mention of them is in Acts xi. 30, where they 
receive the alms sent from Antioch. It is significant 
that we do not hear of their first appointment. The 
organisation of the Church took shape as exigencies 
prescribed. 

The deputation left Antioch, escorted lovingly for a 

Von. I. F 





82 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca xv. ' 


little way by the Church, and, journeying by land, — 
gladdened the groups of believers in ‘Phenicia and 
Samaria’ with the news that the Gentiles were turning 
toGod. We note that they are not said to have spoken 
of the thorny question in these countries, and that it 
is not said that there was joy in Judza. Perhaps the 
Christians in it were in sympathy with the narrower 
view. 

The first step taken in Jerusalem was to call a meet-— 
ing of the Church to welcome the deputation. It is sig- 
nificant that the latter did not broach the question in 
debate, but told the story of the success of their mission. 
That was the best argument for receiving Gentile con- 
verts without circumcision. God had received them; 
should not the Church do so? Facts are stronger 
than theories. It was Peter’s argument in the case of 
Cornelius: they ‘have received the Holy Ghost as well 
as we, ‘who was I, that I could withstand God?’ It — 
is the argument which shatters all analogous narrow- 
ing of the conditions of Christian life. If men say, © 
‘Except ye be’ this or that ‘ye cannot be saved, it is 
enough to point to the fruits of Christian character, 
and say, ‘These show that the souls which bring them 
forth are saved, and you must widen your conceptions 
of the possibilities to include these actualities.’ It is 
vain to say ‘ Ye cannot be’ when manifestly they are. 

But the logic of facts does not convince obstinate 
theorists, and so the Judaising party persisted in their 
‘It is needful to circumcise them.’ None are so blind as 
those to whom religion is mainly a matter of ritual. 
You may display the fairest graces of Christian 
character before them, and you get no answer but the 
‘reiteration of ‘It is needful to circumcise you. But 
on their own ground, in Jerusalem, the spokesmen of 


4 
hs 








vs. 1-6] GENTILE LIBERTY 83 


that party enlarged their demands. Im Antioch they 
had insisted on circumcision, in Jerusalem they added 
the demand for entire conformity to the Mosaic law. 
They were quite logical; their principle demanded that 
extension of the requirement, and was thereby con- 
demned as utterly unworkable. Now that the whole 
battery was unmasked the issue was clear—Is Chris- 
tianity to be a Jewish sect or the universal religion ? 
Clear as it was, few in that assembly saw it. But the 
parting of the ways had been reached. 


THE CHARTER OF GENTILE LIBERTY 


‘Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, 
declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by 
them. 13. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and 
brethren, hearkenuntome: 14. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit 
the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for Hisname. 15. And to this agree the 
words of the prophets; as itis written, 16. After this I will return, and will build 
again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the 
ruins thereof, and I will setitup: 17. That the residue of men might seek after 
the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who 
doeth all these things. 18. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning 
of the world. 19. Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from 
among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20. But that we write unto them, that 
they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things 
strangled, and from blood. 21. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that 
preach Him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day. 22. Then pleased it 
the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own 
company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, 
and Silas, chief men among the brethren: 23. And they wrote letters by them 
after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the 
brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: 24. Foras- 
much as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you 
with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the 
law: to whom we gave no such commandment: 25. It seemed good unto us, 
being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved 
Barnabas and Paul, 26. Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 27. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also 
tell you the same things by mouth. 28. Forit seemed good to the Holy Ghost, 
and to us, tolay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29. That 
ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, 
and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare 
ye well.’—Acts xv. 12-29. 


_ Mucu was at stake in the decision of this gathering of 


the Church. If the Jewish party triumphed, Christian- 
ity sank to the level of a Jewish sect. The question 





84 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca.xv. 


brought up for decision was difficult, and there was much ~ 
to be said for the view that the Mosaic law was binding 
on Gentile converts. It must have been an uprooting 
of deepest beliefs for a Jewish Christian to contemplate 
the abrogation of that law, venerable by its divine 
origin, by its hoary antiquity, by its national associa- 
tions. We must not be hard upon men who clung to 
it; but we should learn from their final complete drift- 
ing away from Christianity how perilous is the position — 
which insists on the necessity to true discipleship of 
any outward observance. 

Our passage begins in the middle of the conference. 
Peter has, with characteristic vehemence, dwelt upon 
the divine attestation of the genuine equality of the 
uncircumcised converts with the Jewish, given by their 
possession of the same divine Spirit, and has flung fiery 
questions at the Judaisers, which silenced them. Then, 
after the impressive hush following his eager words, 
Barnabas and Paul tell their story once more, and 
clinch the nail driven by Peter by asserting that God 
had already by ‘signs and wonders’ given His sanction 


to the admission of Gentiles without circumcision. — 


Characteristically, in Jerusalem Barnabas is restored 
to his place above Paul, and is named first as speaking 
first, and regarded by the Jerusalem Church as the 
superior of the missionary pair. 

The next speaker is James, not an Apostle, but the 
bishop of the Church in Jerusalem, of whom tradition 
tells that he was a zealous adherent to the Mosaic law 
in his own person, and that his knees were as hard as a 
camel's through continual prayer. It is singular that 
this meeting should be so often called ‘the Apostolic 
council, when, as a fact, only one Apostle said a 
word, and he not as an Apostle, but as the chosen 


vs. 12-29] GENTILE LIBERTY 85 


instrument to preach to the Gentiles. ‘The elders,’ 
of whose existence we now hear for the first time in 
this wholly incidental manner, were associated with 
the Apostles (ver. 6), and the ‘multitude’ (ver. 12) is 
most naturally taken to be ‘the whole Church’ (ver. 
22). James represents the eldership, and as bishop in 
Jerusalem and an eager observer of legal prescriptions, 
fittingly speaks. His words practically determined the 
question. Like a wise man, he begins with facts. His 
use of the intensely Jewish form of the name Simeon 
is an interesting reminiscence of old days. So he had 
been accustomed to call Peter when they were all young 
together, and so he calls him still, though everybody 
else named him by his new name. What God had done 
by him seems to James to settle the whole question; 
for it was nothing else than to put the Gentile converts 
without circumcision on an equality with the Jewish 
part of the Church. 

Note the significant juxtaposition of the words 
‘Gentiles’ and ‘people’—the former the name for 
heathen, the latter the sacred designation of the chosen 
nation. The great paradox which, through Peter’s 
preaching at Czsarea, had become a fact was that the 
‘people of God’ were made up of Gentiles as well as 
Jews—that His name was equally imparted to both. 
If God had made Gentiles His people, had He not 
thereby shown that the special observances of Israel 
were put aside, and that, in particular, circumcision 
was no longer the condition of entrance? The end of 
national distinction and the opening of a new way of 
incorporation among the people of God were clearly con- 
tained in the facts. How much Christian narrowness 
would be blown to atoms if its advocates would do as 
James did, and let God’s facts teach them the width of 





86 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca.xyv. 


God’s purposes and the comprehensiveness of Christ’s — 
Church! We do wisely when we square our theories 
with facts; but many of us go to work in the opposite 
way, and snip down facts to the dimension of our 
theories. 

James’s next step is marked equally by calm wisdom 
and open-mindedness. He looks to God's word, as 
interpreted by God's deeds, to throw light in turn on 
the deeds and to confirm the interpretation of these. 
Two things are to be noted in considering his quotation 
from Amos—its bearing on the question in hand, and 
its divergence from the existing Hebrew text. As to 
the former, there seems at first sight nothing relevant 
to James’s purpose in the quotation, which simply 
declares that the Gentiles will seek the Lord when the 
fallen tabernacle of David is rebuilt. That period of 
time has at least begun, thinks James, in the work of 
- Jesus, in whom the decayed dominion of David is again 
in higher form established. The return of the Gentiles 
does not merely synchronise with, but is the intended 
issue of, Christ’s reign. Lifted from the earth, He will 
draw all men unto Him, and they shall ‘seek the Lord, 
and on them His name will be called. 

Now the force of this quotation lies, as it seems, first 
in the fact that Peter’s experience at Czesarea is to be 
taken as an indication of how God means the prophecy 
to be fulfilled, namely, without circumcision; and 
secondly, in the argumentum a silentio, since the 
prophet says nothing about ritual or the like, but 
declares that moral and spiritual qualifications—on the 
one hand a true desire after God, and on the other 
receiving the proclamation of His name and calling 
themselves by it—are all that are needed to make 
Gentiles God’s people. Just because there is nothing 


fl 


vs. 12-29] GENTILE LIBERTY 87 


in the prophecy about observing Jewish ceremonies, 
and something about longing and faith, James thinks 
that these are the essentials, and that the others may 
be dropped by the Church, as God had dropped them in 
the case of Cornelius, and as Amos had dropped them 
in his vision of the future kingdom. God knew what 
He meant to do when He spoke through the prophet, 
and what He has done has explained the words, as 
James says in verse 18. 

The variation from the Hebrew text requires a word 
of comment. The quotation is substantially from the 
Septuagint, with a slight alteration. Probably James 
quoted the version familiar to many of his hearers. It 
seems to have been made from a somewhat different 
Hebrew text in verse 17, but the difference is very much 
slighter than an English reader would suppose. Our 
text has ‘Edom’ where the Septuagint has ‘men’; but 
the Hebrew words without vowels are identical but for 
the addition of one letter in the former. Our text has 
‘inherit’ where the Septuagint has ‘seek after’; but 
there again the difference in the two Hebrew words 
would be one letter only, so that there may well have 
been a various reading as preserved in the Septuagint 
and Acts. James adds to the Septuagint ‘seek’ the 
evidently correct completion ‘the Lord.’ 

Now it is obvious that, even if we suppose his render- 
ing of the whole verse to be a paraphrase of the same 
Hebrew text as we have, it is a correct representation 
of the meaning; for the ‘inheriting of Edom’ is no 
mere external victory, and Edom is always in the Old 
Testament the type of the godless man. The conquest 
of the Gentiles by the restorer of David’s tabernacle is 
really the seeking after the Lord, and the calling of His 
name upon the Gentiles, 





88 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xv. 


The conclusion drawn by James is full of practical 
wisdom, and would have saved the Church from many 
asad page in its history, if its spirit had been prevalent 
in later ‘councils. Note how the very designation 
given to the Gentile converts in verse 19 carries argu- 
mentative force. ‘They turn to God from among the 
Gentiles ’—if they have done that, surely their new 
separation and new attachment are enough, and make 
insistence on circumcision infinitely ridiculous. They 
have the thing signified; what does it matter about the 
sign, which is good for us Jews, but needless for them? 
If Church rulers had always been as open-eyed as this 
bishop in Jerusalem, and had been content if people 
were joined to God and parted from the world, what 
torrents of blood, what frowning walls of division, 
what scandals and partings of brethren would have 
been spared ! 

The observances suggested are a portion of the pre- 
cepts enjoined by Judaism on proselytes. The two 
former were necessary to the Christian life; the two 
latter were not, but were concessions to the Jewish feel- 
ings of the stricter party. The conclusion may be called 
a compromise, but it was one dictated by the desire for 
unity, and had nothing unworthy init. There should 
be giving and taking on both sides. If the Jewish 
Christians made the, to them, immense concession of 
waiving the necessity of circumcision, the Gentile 
section might surely make the small one of abstinence 
from things strangled and from blood. Similarities in 
diet would daily assimilate the lives of the two parties, 
and would be a more visible and continuous token of 
their oneness than the single act of circumcision. 

But what does the reason in verse 21 mean? Why 
should the reading of Moses every Sabbath be a reason 


a o> 


vs, 12-29] GENTILE LIBERTY 89 


for these concessions? Various answers are given: but 
the most natural is that the constant promulgation of 
the law made respect for the feelings (even if mistaken) 
of Jewish Christians advisable, and the course sug- 
gested the most likely to win Jews who were not yet 
Christians. Both classes would be flung farther apart 
if there were not some yielding. The general principle 
involved is that one cannot be too tender with old and 
deeply rooted convictions even if they be prejudices, 
and that Christian charity, which is truest wisdom, 
will consent to limitations of Christian liberty, if there- 
by any little one who believes in Him shall be saved 
from being offended, or any unbeliever from being 
repelled. 

The letter embodying James’s wise suggestion needs 
little further notice. We may observe that there was 
no imposing and authoritative decision of the Ecclesia, 
but that the whole thing was threshed out in free talk, 
and then the unanimous judgment of the community, 
‘Apostles, elders and the whole Church,’ was embodied in 
the epistle. Observe the accurate rendering of verse 25 
(R.V.), ‘having come to one accord, which gives a lively 
picture of the process. Note too that James's proposal 
of a letter was mended by the addition of a deputation, 
consisting of an unknown ‘Judas called Barsabas’ 
(perhaps a relative of ‘Joseph called Barsabas,’ the 
unsuccessful nominee for Apostleship in chap. i.), and 
the well-known Silas or Silvanus, of whom we hear so 
much in Paul’s letters. That journey was the turning- 
point in his life, and he henceforward, attracted by the 
mass and magnetism of Paul’s great personality, 
revolved round him, and forsook Jerusalem. 

Probably James drew up the document, which has 
the same somewhat unusual ‘greeting’ as his Epistle, 





90 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xv. 


The sharp reference to the Judaising teachers would be ~ 
difficult for their sympathisers to swallow, but charity 
is not broken by plain repudiation of error and its 
teachers. ‘Subverting your souls’ is a heavy charge. 
The word is only here found in the New Testament, 
and means to unsettle, the image in it being that of 
packing up baggage for removal. The disavowal of 
these men is more complete if we follow the Revised 
Version in reading (ver. 24) ‘no commandment’ instead 
of ‘no such commandment.’ 

These unauthorised teachers ‘went’; but, in strong 
contrast with them, Judas and Silas are chosen out and 
sent. Another thrust at the Judaising teachers is in 
the affectionate eulogy of Paul and Barnabas as 
‘beloved, whatever disparaging things had been said 
about them, and as having ‘hazarded their lives,’ while 
these others had taken very good care of themselves, 
and had only gone to disturb converts whom Paul and 
Barnabas had won at the peril of their lives. 

The calm matter-of-course assertion that the decision 
which commended itself to ‘us’ is the decision of ‘the 
Holy Ghost’ was warranted by Christ’s promises, and 
came from the consciousness that they had observed the 
conditions which He had laid down. They had brought 
their minds to bear upon the question, with the light of 
facts and of Scripture, and had come to a unanimous 
conclusion. If they believed their Lord’s parting words, 
they could not doubt that His Spirit had guided them. 
If we lived more fully in that Spirit, we should know 
more of the same peaceful assurance, which is far 
removed from the delusion of our own infallibility, and 
is the simple expression of trust in the veracious 
promises of our Lord. 

The closing words of the letter are beautifully 


vs. 12-29] A GOOD MAN’S FAULTS 91 


brotherly, sinking authority, and putting in the fore- 
ground the advantage to the Gentile converts of 
compliance with the injunctions. ‘Ye shall do well, 
rightly and conformably with the requirements of 
brotherly love to weaker brethren. And thus doing 
well, they will ‘fare well, and be strong. That is not 
the way in which ‘lords over God’s heritage’ are 
accustomed to end their decrees. Brotherly affection, 
rather than authority imposing its will, breathes here. 
Would that all succeeding ‘Councils’ had imitated this 
as well as ‘it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to 
us’! 


A GOOD MAN’S FAULTS 


* And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. 
38. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them 
from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.’—ActTs xv. 37, 38. 


SCRIPTURE narratives are remarkable for the frank- 
ness with which they tell the faults of the best men. 
It has nothing in common with the cynical spirit in 
historians, of which this age has seen eminent examples, 
which fastens upon the weak places in the noblest 
natures, like a wasp on bruises in the ripest fruit, and 
delights in showing how all goodness is imperfect, that 
it may suggest that none is genuine. Nor has it any- 
thing in common with that dreary melancholy which 
also has its representatives among us, that sees every- 
where only failures and fragments of men, and has no 
hope of ever attaining anything beyond the common 
average of excellence. But Scripture frankly confesses 
that all its noblest characters have fallen short of 
unstained purity, and with boldness of hope as great 
as its frankness teaches the weakest to aspire, and the 
most sinful te expect perfect likeness to a perfect 


92 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca.xy. 


Lord. It is a plane mirror, giving back all images 


without distortion. 

We recall how emphatically and absolutely it eulo- 
gised Barnabas as ‘a good man, full of the Holy Ghost 
and of faith’—and now we have to notice how this 
man, thus full of the seminal principle of all goodness, 
derived into his soul by deep and constant communion 
through faith, and showing in his life practical right- 
eousness and holiness, yet goes sadly astray, tarnishes 
his character, and mars his whole future. 

The two specific faults recorded of him are his over- 
indulgence in the case of Mark, and his want of firm- 
ness in opposition to the Judaising teachers who came 
down to Antioch. They were neither of them grave 
faults, but they were real. In the one he was too 
facile in overlooking a defect which showed unfitness 
for the work, and seems to have yielded to family affec- 
tion and to have sacrificed the efficiency of a mission to 
it. Not only was he wrong in proposing to condone 
Mark’s desertion, but he was still more wrong in his 
reception of the opposition to his proposal. With the 
firmness which weak characters so often display at the 
wrong time, he was resolved, come what would, to have 
his own way. Temper rather than principle made him 
obstinate where he should have been yielding, as it had 
made him in Antioch yielding, where he should have 
been firm. Paul’s remonstrances have no.effect. He 
will rather have his own way than the companionship 
of his old friend, and so there come alienation and 
separation. The Church at Antioch takes Paul’s view— 
all the brethren are unanimous in disapproval. But 
Barnabas will not move. He sets up his own feeling in 
opposition to them all. The sympathy of his brethren, 
the work of his life, the extension of Christ’s kingdom, 





7 


vs.37,38] A GOOD MAN’S FAULTS 93 


are all tossed aside. His own foolish purpose is more 
to him in that moment of irritation than all these. So 
he snaps the tie, abandons his work, and goes away 
without a kindly word, without a blessing, without the 
Church’s prayers—but with his nephew for whom he 
had given up all these. Paul sails away to do God's 
work, and the Church ‘recommends him to the grace of 
God, but Barnabas steals away home to Cyprus, and 
his name is no more heard in the story of the planting 
of the kingdom of Christ. 

One hopes that his work did not stop thus, but his 
recorded work does, and in the band of friends who 
surrounded the great Apostle, the name of his earliest 
friend appears no more. Other companions and asso- 
ciates in labour take his place; he, as it appears, is 
gone for ever. One reference (1 Cor. ix. 6) at a later 
date seems most naturally to suggest that he still con- 
tinued in the work of an evangelist, and still practised 
the principle to which he and Paul had adhered when 
together, of supporting himself by manual labour. The 
tone of the reference implies that there were relations 
’ of mutual respect. But the most we can believe is that 
probably the two men still thought kindly of each 
other and honoured each other for their work’s sake, 
but found it better to labour apart, and not to seek 
to renew the old companionship which had been so 
violently torn asunder. 

The other instance of weakness was in some respects 
of a still graver kind. The cause of it was the old con- 
troversy about the obligations of Jewish law on Gentile 
Christians. Paul, Peter, and Barnabas all concurred in 
neglecting the restrictions imposed by Judaism, and in 
living on terms of equality and association in eating 
and drinking with the heathen converts at Antioch. A 





94 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xv. 


principle was involved, to which Barnabas had been 
the first to give in his adhesion, in the frank recog- 
nition of the Antioch Church. But as soon as emis- 
saries from the other party came down, Peter and he 
abandoned their association with Gentile converts, not 
changing their convictions but suppressing the action 
to which their convictions should have led. They pre- 
tended to be of the same mind with these narrow Jews 
from Jerusalem. They insulted their brethren, they 
deserted Paul, they belied their convictions, they im- 
perilled the cause of Christian liberty, they flew in the 
face of what Peter had said that God Himself had 
showed him, they did their utmost to degrade Christi- 
anity into a form of Judaism—all for the sake of keep- 
ing on good terms with the narrow bigotry of these 
Judaising teachers. 

Now if we take these two facts together, and set 
them side by side with the eulogy pronounced on Bar- 
nabas as ‘a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of 
faith, we have brought before us in a striking form 
some important considerations. 

I. The imperfect goodness of good men. 

A good man does not mean a faultless man. Of course 
the power which works on a believing soul is always 
tending to produce goodness and only goodness. But 
its operation is not such that we are always equally, 
uniformly, perfectly under its influence. Power in germ 
is one thing, in actual operation another. There may be 
but a little ragged patch of green in the garden, and yet 
it may be on its way to become a flower-bed. A king 
may not have established dominion over all his land. 
The actual operation of that transforming Spirit at any 
given moment is limited, and we can withdraw ourselves 
from it. It does not begin by leavening all our nature. 


vs.37,38]) A GOOD MAN’S FAULTS 95 


So we have to note— 

The root of goodness. 

The main direction of a life. 

The progressive character of goodness. 

The highest style of Christian life is a struggle. So 
we draw practical inferences as to the conduct of life. 

This thought of imperfection does not diminish the 
criminality of individual acts. 

It does not weaken aspiration and effort towards 
higher life. 

It does alleviate our doubts and fears when we find 
evilin ourselves. _ 

II. The possible evil lurking in our best qualities. 

In Barnabas, his amiability and openness of nature, 
the very characteristics that had made him strong, now 
make him weak and wrong. 

How clearly then there is brought out here the 
danger that lurks evenin our good! I need not remind 
you how every virtue may be run to an extreme and 
become a vice. Liberality is exaggerated into prodi- 
gality; firmness, into obstinacy; mercy, into weak- 
ness; gravity, into severity; tolerance, into feeble 
conviction; humility, into abjectness. 

And these extremes are reached when these graces 
are developed at the expense of the symmetry of the 
character. 

We are not simple but complex, and what we need 
to aim at is a character, not an excrescence. Some 
people’s goodness is like a wart or awen. Their virtues 
are cases of what medical technicality calls hypertrophy. 
But our goodness should be like harmonious Indian 
patterns, where all colours blend in a balanced whole. 

Such considerations enforce the necessity for rigid 
self-control. And that in two directions. 





96 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz xv. 


(a) Beware of your excellences, your strong points. 

(b) Cultivate sedulously the virtues to which you are 
not inclined. 

The special form of error into which Barnabas fell is 
worth notice. It was over-indulgence, tolerance of evil 
in a person; feebleness of grasp, a deficiency of bold- 
ness in carrying out his witness to a disputed truth. 
In this day liberality, catholicity, are pushed so far that 
there is danger of our losing the firmness of our grasp 
of principles, and indulgence for faults goes so far 
that we are apt to lose the habit of unsparing, though 
unangry, condemnation of unworthy characters. This 
generation is like Barnabas; very quick in sympathy, 
generous in action, ready to recognise goodness where- 
ever it is beheld. But Barnabas may be a beacon, 
warning us of the possible evils that dog these excel- 
lences like their shadows. 

III. The grave issues of small faults. 

Comparatively trivial as was Barnabas’s error, it 
seems to have wrecked his life, at least to have marred 
it for long years, and to have broken his sweet com- 
panionship with Paul. I think we may go further and 
say, that most good men are in more danger from 
trivial faults than from great ones. No man reaches 
the superlative degree of wickedness all at once. 
Few men spring from the height to the abyss, they 
usually slip down. The erosive action of the sand of 
the desert is said to be gradually cutting off the 
Sphinx’s head. The small faults are most numerous. 
We are least on our guard against them. There is a 
microscopic weed that chokes canals. Snow-flakes 
make the sky as dark as an eclipse does. White ants 
eat a carcase quicker than a lion does. 

So we urge the necessity for bringing ordinary deeds 


vs. 37,38) A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE 97 


and small actions to be ruled and guided by God's 
Spirit. 

How the contemplation of the imperfection, which is 
the law of life, should lead us to hope for that heaven 
where perfection is. 

How the contemplation of the limits of all human 
goodness should lead us to exclusive faith in, and imita- 
tion of, the one perfect Lord. He stands stainless 
among the stained. In Him alone is no sin, from Him 
alone like goodness may be ours. 


HOW TO SECURE A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE 


* And after [Paul] had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into 
Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel 
unto them. 11. Therefore ...we came with a straight course.’— Acts xvi. 10, 11. 


Tuts book of the Acts is careful to point out how each 
fresh step in the extension of the Church’s work was 
directed and commanded by Jesus Christ Himself. 
Thus Philip was sent by specific injunction to ‘join 
himself’ to the chariot of the Ethiopian statesman. 
Thus Peter on the house-top at Joppa, looking out 
over the waters of the western sea, had the vision of 
the great sheet, knit at the four corners. And thus 
Paul, in singularly similar circumstances, in the little 
seaport of Troas, looking out over the narrower sea 
which there separates Asia from Europe, had the vision 
of the man of Macedonia, with his cry, ‘Come over and 
help us!’ The whole narrative before us bears upon 
the one point, that Christ Himself directs the expansion 
of His kingdom. And there never was a more fateful 
moment than that at which the Gospel, in the person 
of the Apostle, crossed the sea, and effected a lodg- 
ment in the progressive quarter of the world. 
VOL. Il. G 





98 


Now what I wish to do is to note how Paul and his — 
little company behaved themselves when they had 
received Christ's commandment. For I think there 
are lessons worth the gathering to be found there. 
There was no doubt about the vision; the question 
was what it meant. So note three stages. First, 
careful consideration, with one’s own common sense, 
of what God wants us to do—‘Assuredly gathering 
that the Lord had called us.’ Then, let no grass grow 
under our feet—immediate obedience—‘Straightway 
we endeavoured to go into Macedonia. And then, 
patient pondering and instantaneous submission get 
the reward—‘ We came with a straight course. He 
gave the winds and the waves charge concerning them. 
Now there are three lessons for us. Taken together, 
they are patterns of what ought to be in our experience, 
and will be, if the conditions are complied with. 

I. First, Careful Consideration. 

Paul had no doubt that what he saw was a vision 
from Christ, and not a mere dream of the night, born 
of the reverberation of waking thoughts and anxieties, 
that took the shape of the plaintive ery of the man of 
Macedonia. But then the next step was to be quite 
sure of what the vision meant. And so, wisely, he does 
- not make up his mind himself, but calls in the three 
men who were with him. And what a significant little 
group it was! There were Timothy, Silas, and Luke— 
Silas, from Jerusalem; Timothy, half a Gentile; Luke, 
altogether a Gentile; and Paul himself—and these 
four shook the world. They come together, and they 
talk the matter over. The word of my text rendered 
‘assuredly gathering’ is a picturesque one. It literally 
means ‘laying things together.’ They set various facts 
side by side, or as we say in our colloquial idiom, 


et lk 


_ freee 


vs.10,11] A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE 99 


‘They put this and that together, and so they came 
to understand what the vision meant. 

What had they to help them to understand it? 
Well, they had this fact, that in all the former part of 
their journey they had been met by hindrances; that 
their path had been hedged up here, there, and every- 
where. Paul set out from Antioch, meaning a quiet 
little tour of visitation amongst the churches that had 
been already established. Jesus Christ meant Philippi 
and Athens and Corinth and Ephesus, before Paul 
got back again. So we read in an earlier portion of 
the chapter that the Spirit of Jesus forbade them to 
speak the Word in one region, and checked and hin- 
dered them when, bafiled, they tried to go to another. 
There then remained only one other road open to 
them, and that led to the coast. Thus putting together 
their hindrances and their stimuluses, they came to 
the conclusion that unitedly the two said plainly, ‘Go 
across the sea, and preach the word there.’ 

Now it is a very commonplace and homely piece of 
teaching to remind you that time is not wasted in 
making quite sure of the meaning of providences 
which seem to declare the will of God, before we begin 
to act. But the commonest duties are very often 
neglected; and we preachers, I think, would very often 
do more good by hammering at commonplace themes 
than by bringing out original and fresh ones. And so 
I venture to say a word about the immense importance 
to Christian life and Christian service of this pre- 
liminary step—‘assuredly gathering that the Lord 
had called us. What have we to do in order to be 
quite sure of God's intention for us? 

Well, the first thing seems to me to make quite sure 
that we want to know it, and that we do not want to 





100 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca: xvi. 


force our intentions upon Him, and then to plume. 
ourselves upon being obedient to His call, when we 
are only doing what we like. There is a vast deal of 
unconscious insincerity in us all; and especially in 
regard to Christian work there is an enormous amount 
of it. People will say, ‘Oh, I have such a strong 
impulse in a given direction, to do certain kinds of 
Christian service, that Iam quite sure that it is God’s 
will. How are yousure? A strong impulse may be a 
temptation from the devil as well as a call from God. 
And men who simply act on untested impulses, even 
the most benevolent which spring directly from large 
Christian principles, may be making deplorable mis- 
takes. It is not enough to have pure motives. It is 
useless to say, ‘Such and such a course of action is 
clearly the result of the truths of the Gospel.’ That 
may be all perfectly true, and yet the course may not 
be the course for you. For there may be practical 
considerations, which do not come into our view unless 
we carefully think about them, which forbid us to take 
such a path. So remember that strong impulses are 
not guiding lights; nor is it enough to vindicate our 
pursuing some mode of Christian service that it is in 
accordance with the principles of the Gospel. ‘Cireum- 
stances alter cases’ is a very homely old saying; but 
if Christian people would only bring the common sense 
to bear upon their religious life which they need to 
bring to bear upon their business life, unless they are 
going into the Gazette, there would be less waste work 
in the Christian Church than there is to-day. I do 
not want less zeal; I want that the reins of the fiery 
steed shall be kept well in hand. The difference be- 
tween a fanatic, who is a fool, and an enthusiast, who 
is a wise man, is that the one brings calm reason to 


vs.10,11] A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE 101 


bear, and an open-eyed consideration of circumstances 
all round; and the other sees but one thing at a time, 
and shuts his eyes, like a bull in a field, and charges at 
that. So let us be sure, to begin with, that we want 
to know what God wants us to do; and that we are 
not palming our wishes upon Him, and calling them 
His providences. 

Then there is another plain, practical consideration 
that comes out of this story, and that is, Do not be 
above being taught by failures and hindrances. You 
know the old proverb, ‘It is waste time to flog a dead 
horse. There is not a little well-meant work flung 
away, because it is expended on obviously hopeless 
efforts to revivify, perhaps, some moribund thing or 
to continue, perhaps, in some old, well-worn rut, in- 
stead of striking out into a new path. Paul was full of 
enthusiasm for the evangelisation of Asia Minor, and 
he might have said a great deal about the importance 
of going to Ephesus. He tried to do it, but Christ 
said ‘No,’ and Paul did not knock his head against the 
stone wall that lay between him and the accomplish- 
ment of his purpose, but he gave it up and tried 
another tack. He next wished to go up into Bithynia, 
and he might have said a great deal about the needs 
of the people by the Euxine; but again down came 
the barrier, and he had once more to learn the lesson, 
‘Not as thou wilt, but as I will. He was not above 
being taught by his failures. Some of us are; and it 
is very difficult, and needs a great deal of Christian 
wisdom and unselfishness, to distinguish between hin- 
drances in the way of work which are meant to evoke 
larger efforts, and hindrances which are meant to 
say, ‘Try another path, and do not waste time here 
any longer.’ 





102 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xvz 


But if we wish supremely to know God’s will, He 
will help us to distinguish between these two kinds of 
difficulties. Some one has said, ‘ Difficulties are things 
to be overcome. Yes, but not always. They very 
often are, and we should thank God for them then; 
but they sometimes are God’s warnings to us to go by 
another road. So we need discretion, and patience, 
and suspense of judgment to be brought to bear 
upon all our purposes and plans. 

Then, of course, I need not remind you that the way 
to get light is to seek it in the Book and in communion 
with Him whom the Book reveals to us as the true 
Word of God: ‘He that followeth Me shall not walk 
in darkness, but shall have the light of life. So care- 
ful consideration is a preliminary to all good Christian 
work. And, if you can, talk to some Timothy and 
Silas and Luke about your course, and do not be above 
taking a brother’s advice. 

II. The next step is Immediate Submission. 

When they had assuredly gathered that the Lord 
had called them, ‘immediately "—there is great virtue 
in that one word —‘we endeavoured to go into 
Macedonia.’ Delayed obedience is the brother—and, 
if I may mingle metaphors, sometimes the father—of 
disobedience. It sometimes means simple feebleness 
of conviction, indolence, and a general lack of fervour. 
It means very often a reluctance to do the duty that 
lies plainly before us. And, dear brethren, as I have 
said about the former lesson, so I say about this. The 
homely virtue, which we all know to be indispensable 
to success in common daily life and commercial under- 
takings, is no less. indispensable to all vigour of 
Christian life and to all nobleness of Christian service. 
We have no hours to waste; the time is short. ‘In 


ee a a 


vs.10,11] A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE 103 


the harvest-field, especially when it is getting near 
the end of the week, and the Sunday is at hand, there 
are little leisure and little tolerance of slow workers. 
And for us the fields are white, the labourers are few, 
the Lord of the harvest is imperative, the sun is 
hurrying to the west, and the sickles will have to 
be laid down before long. So, ‘immediately we en- 
deavoured.’ 

Delayed duty is present discomfort. As long as a 
man has a conscience, so long will he be restless and 
uneasy until he has, as the Quakers say, ‘cleared him- 
self of his burden,’ and done what he knows that he 
ought to do, and got done with it. Delayed obedience 
means wasted possibilities of service, and so is ever to 
be avoided. The more disagreeable anything is which 
is plainly a duty, the more reason there is for doing 
it right away. ‘I made haste, and delayed not, but 
made haste to keep Thy commandments.’ 

Did you ever count how many ‘straightways’ there 
are in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel? If you have 
not, will you do it when you go home; and notice 
how they come in? In the story of Christ’s opening 
ministry every fresh incident is tacked on to the one 
before it, in that chapter, by that same word ‘straight- 
way. ‘Straightway’ He does that; ‘anon’ He does 
this; ‘immediately’ He does the other thing. All is 
one continuous stream of acts of service. The Gospel 
of Mark is the Gospel of the servant, and it sets forth 
the pattern to which all Christian service ought to be 
conformed. 

So if we take Jesus Christ for our Example, unhast- 
ing and unresting in the work of the Lord, we shall 
let no moment pass burdened with undischarged duty; 
and we shall find that all the moments are few 





104 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xv1. 


enough for the discharge of the duties incumbent — 
upon us. 

III. So, lastly, careful consideration and unhesitating 
obedience. lead to a Straight Course. 

Well, it is not so always, but it is so generally. There 
is a wonderful power in diligent doing of God’s known 
will to smooth away difficulties and avoid troubles. 
I do not, of course, mean that a man who thus lives, 
patiently ascertaining and then promptly doing what 
God would have him do, has any miraculous exemption 
from the ordinary sorrows and trials of life. But sure 
I am that a very, very large proportion of all the 
hindrances and disappointments, storms and quick- 
sands, calms which prevent progress and headwinds 
that beat in our faces, are directly the products of our 
negligence in one or other of these two respects, and 
that although by no means absolutely, yet to an extent 
that we should not believe if we had not the experience 
of it, the wish to do God’s will and the doing of it 
with our might when we know what it is have a 
talismanic power in calming the seas and bringing us 
to the desired haven. 

But though this is not always absolutely true in 
regard of outward things, it is, without exception or 
limitation, true in regard of the inward life. For if 
my supreme will is to do God’s will then nothing 
which is His will, and comes to me because it is can 
be a hindrance in my doing that. 

As an old proverb says, ‘Travelling merchants can 
never be out of their road. And a Christian man 
whose path is simple obedience to the will of God can 
never be turned from that path by whatever hin- 
drances may affect his outward life. So, in deepest 
truth, there is always a calm voyage for the men 


vs. 10,11] PAUL AT PHILIPPI 105 


whose eyes are open to discern, and whose hands are 
swift to fulfil, the commandments of their Father in 
heaven. For them all winds blow them to their port; 
for them ‘all things work together for good’; with 
them-God’s servants who hearken to the voice of His 
-commandments, and are His ministers to do His 
pleasure, can never be other than in amity and alliance. 
He who is God’s servant is the world’s master. ‘All 
things are yours if ye are Christ's,’ 

So, brethren, careful study of providences and 
visions, of hindrances and stimulus, careful setting 
of our lives side by side with the Master’s, and a 
swift delight in doing the will of the Lord, will 
secure for us, in inmost truth, a prosperous voyage, 
till all storms are hushed, ‘and they are glad because 
they be quiet; so He bringeth them to their desired 
haven.’ 


PAUL AT PHILIPPI 


‘And on the sabbath day we went forth without the gate, by a river side, 
where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down, and spake unto 
the women which were come together.’—AoTs xvi. 13 (R.V.). 

Tuis is the first record of the preaching of the Gospel 
in Europe, and probably the first instance of it. The 
fact that the vision of the man of Macedonia was 
needed in order to draw the Apostle across the straits 
into Macedonia, and the great length at which the 
incidents at Philippi are recorded, make this probable. 
If so, we are here standing, as it were, at the well- 
head of a mighty river, and the thin stream of water 
assumes importance when we remember the thousand 
miles of its course,and the league-broad estuary in which 
it pours itself into the ocean, Here is the beginning; 


106 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xv1 


the Europe of to-day is what came out of it. There is — 


no sign whatever that the Apostle was conscious of an 
epoch in this transference of the sphere of his opera- 
tions, but we can scarcely help being conscious of such. 

And so, looking at the words of my text, and seeing 


here how unobtrusively there stole into the progressive © 


part of the world the power which was to shatter and 
remould all its institutions, to guide and inform the 
onward march of its peoples, to be the basis of their 
liberties, and the starting-point of their literature, we 
can scarcely avoid drawing lessons of importance. 

The first point which I would suggest, as picturesquely 
enforced for us by this incident, is— 

I. The apparent insignificance and real greatness of 
Christian work. 

There did not seem in the whole of that great city 
that morning a more completely insignificant knot of 
people than the little weather-beaten Jew, travel- 
stained, of weak bodily presence, and of contemptible 
speech, with the handful of his attendants, who slipped 
out in the early morning and wended their way to the 
quiet little oratory, beneath the blue sky, by the side 
of the rushing stream, and there talked informally and 
familiarly to the handful of women. The great men 
of Philippi would have stared if any one had said to 
them, ‘ You will be forgotten, but two of these women 
will have their names embalmed in the memory of 
the world for ever. Everybody will know Euodia and 
Syntyche. Your city will be forgotten, although a battle 
that settled the fate of the civilised world was fought 
outside your gates. But that little Jew and the letter 
that he will write to that handful of believers that 
are to be gathered by his preaching will last for ever.’ 
The mightiest thing done in Europe that morning was 





—— 


v.13] PAUL AT PHILIPPI 107 


when the Apostle sat down by the riverside, ‘and 
spake to the women which resorted thither.’ 

The very same vulgar mistake as to what is great 
and as to what is small is being repeated over and 
over again; and we are all tempted to it by that 
which is worldly and vulgar in ourselves, to the 
enormous detriment of the best part of our natures. 
So it is worth while to stop for a moment and ask 
what is the criterion of greatness in our deeds? I 
answer, three things—their motive, their sphere, their 
consequences. What is done for God is always great. 
You take a pebble and drop it into a brook, and imme- 
diately the dull colouring upon it flashes up into beauty 
when the sunlight strikes through the ripples, and the 
magnitude of the little stone is enlarged. If I may 
make use of such a violent expression, drop your deeds 
into God, and they will all be great, however small 
they are. Keep them apart from Him, and they will 
be small, though all the drums of the world beat in 
celebration, and all the vulgar people on the earth extol 
their magnitude. This altar magnifies and sanctifies 
the giver and the gift. The great things are the 
things that are done for God. 

A deed is great according to its sphere. What 
bears on and is confined to material things is smaller 
than what affects the understanding. The teacher is 
more than the man who promotes material good. And 
on the very same principle, above both the one and 
the other, is the doer of deeds which touch the diviner 
part of a man’s nature, his will, his conscience, his 
affections, his relations to God. Thus the deeds that 
impinge upon these are the highest and the greatest; 
and far above the scientific inventor, and far above 
the mere teacher, as I believe, and as I hope you 





108 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xv1 


believe, stands the humblest work of the poorest 
Christian who seeks to draw any other soul into the 
light and liberty which he himself possesses. The 
greatest thing in the world is charity, and the purest 
charity in the world is that which helps a man to 
possess the basis and mother-tincture of all love, the 
love towards God who has first loved us, in the person 
and the work of His dear Son. 

That which being done has consequences that roll 
through souls, ‘and grow for ever and for ever,’ is a 
greater work than the deed whose issues are more 
short-lived. And so the man who speaks a word which 
may deflect a soul into the paths which have no end 
until they are swallowed up in the light of the God 
who ‘is a Sun, is a worker whose work is truly great. 
Brethren, it concerns the nobleness of the life of us 
Christian people far more closely than we sometimes 
suppose, that we should purge our souls from the false 
estimate of magnitudes which prevails so extensively 
in the world’s judgment of men and their doings. And 
though it is no worthy motive for a man to seek to live so 
that he may do great things, it is a part of the discipline 
of the Christian mind, as well as heart, that we should 
be able to reduce the swollen bladders to their true 
flaccidity and insignificance, and that we should under- 
stand that things done for God, things done on men’s 
souls, things done with consequences which time will 
not exhaust, nor eternity put a period to, are, after all, 
the great things of human life. 

Ah, there will be a wonderful reversal of judgments 
one day! Names that now fill the trumpet of fame 
will fall silent. Pages that now are read as if they 
were leaves of the ‘ Book of Life’ will be obliterated and 
unknown, and when all the flashing cressets in Vanity 


v. 13] PAUL AT PHILIPPI 109 


Fair have smoked and stunk themselves out, ‘They 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment, and they that turn many to righteousness as 
the stars for ever and ever. The great things are the 
Christian things, and there was no greater deed done 
that day, on this round earth, than when that Jewish 
wayfarer, travel-stained and insignificant, sat himself 
down in the place of prayer, and ‘spake unto the 
women which resorted thither.’ Do not be over-cowed 
by the loud talk of the world, but understand that 
Christian work is the mightiest work that a man can do. 

Let us take from this incident a hint as to— 

II. The law of growth in Christ’s Kingdom. 

Here, as I have said, is the thin thread of water at 
the source. We to-day are on the broad bosom of the 
expanded stream. Here is the little beginning; the 
world that we see around us has come from this, and 
there is a great deal more to be done yet before all 
the power that was transported into Europe, on that 
Sabbath morning, has wrought its legitimate effects. 
That is to say, ‘the Kingdom of God cometh not by 
observation. Let me say a word, and only a word, 
based on this incident, about the law of small beginnings 
and the law of slow, inconspicuous development. 

We have here an instance of the law of small, silent 
beginnings. Let us go back to the highest example 
of everything that is good; the life of Jesus Christ. 
A cradle at Bethlehem, a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, 
thirty years buried in a village, two or three years, at 
most, going up and down quietly in a remote nook of 
the earth, and then He passed away silently and the 
world did not know Him. ‘He shall not strive nor 
cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets.’ 
And as the Christ so His Church, and so His Gospel, 





110 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvi 


and so all good movements that begin from Him. De- 


structive preparations may be noisy; they generally 
are. Constructive beginnings are silent and small. If 
a thing is launched with a great beating of drums and 
blowing of trumpets, you may be pretty sure there is 
very little in it. Drums are hollow, or they would not 
make such a noise. Trumpets only catch and give 
forth wind. They say—I know not whether it is true 
—that the Wellingtonia gigantea, the greatest of forest 


trees, has a smaller seed than any of its congeners. It 


may be so, at any rate it does for an illustration. The 
germ-cell is always microscopic. A little beginning is 
a prophecy of a great ending. 

In like manner there is another large principle 
suggested here which, in these days of impatient 
haste and rushing to and fro, and religious as well as 
secular advertising and standing at street corners, we 
are very apt to forget, but which we need to remember, 
and that is that the rate of growth is swift when the 
duration of existence is short. A reed springs up in 
a night. How long does an oak take before it gets 
too high for a sheep to crop at? The moth lives its 
full life ina day. There is no creature that has help- 
less infancy solong asa man. We have the slow work 
of mining; the dynamite will be put into the hole 
one day, and the spark applied—and then? So ‘an 
inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, 
but the end thereof shall not be blessed.’ 

Let us apply that to our own personal life and 
work, and to the growth of Christianity in the world, 
and let us not be staggered because either are so slow. 
‘The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as 
some men count slackness. One day is with the Lord 
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’ 


v.13] PAUL AT PHILIPPI 111 


How long will that day be of which a thousand years 
are but as the morning twilight? Brethren, you have 
need of patience. You Christian workers, and I hope 
I am speaking to a great many such now; how long 
does it take before we can say that we are making 
any impression at all on the vast masses of evil and 
sin that are round about us? God waited, nobody 
knows how many millenniums and more than millen- 
niums, before He had the world ready for man. He 
waited for more years than we can tell before He had 
the world ready for the Incarnation. His march is 
very slow because it is ever onwards. Let us be 
thankful if we forge ahead the least little bit; and 
let us not be impatient for swift results which are 
the fool's paradise, and which the man who knows 
that he is working towards God’s own end can well 
afford to do without. 

And now, lastly, let me ask you to notice, still further 
as drawn from this incident— 

III. The simplicity of the forces to which God en- 
trusts the growth of His Kingdom. 

It is almost ludicrous to think, if it were not pathetic 
and sublime, of the disproportion between the end that 
was aimed at and the way that was taken to reach 
it, which the text opens before us. ‘We went. out 
to the riverside, and we spake unto the women which 
resorted thither. That was all. Think of Europe as 
it was at that time. There was Greece over the hills, 
there was Rome ubiquitous and ready to exchange its 
contemptuous toleration for active hostility. There 
was the unknown barbarism of the vague lands beyond. 
Think of the established idolatries which these men 
had to meet, around which had gathered, by the super- 
stitious awe of untold ages, everything that was 





112 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [oen. xvi 


obstinate, everything that was menacing, everything 
that was venerable. Think of the subtleties to which 
they had to oppose their unlettered message. Think 
of the moral corruption that was eating like an ulcer 
into the very heart of society. Did ever a Cortez on 
the beach, with his ships in flames behind him, and 
a continent in arms before, cast himself on a more 
desperate venture? And they conquered! How? 
What were the small stones from the brook that slew 
Goliath? Have we got them? Here they are, the 
message that they spoke, the white heat of earnestness 
with which they spoke it, and the divine Helper who 
backed them up. And we have this message. Brethren, 
that old word, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world 
to Himself, is as much needed, as potent, as truly 
adapted to the complicated civilisation of this genera- 
tion, as surely reaching the deepest wants of the human 
soul, as it was in the days when first the message 
poured, like a red-hot lava flood, from the utterances 
of Paul. Like lava it has gone cold to-day, and stiff 
in many places, and all the heat is out of it. That is 
the fault of the speaker, never of the message. It is 
as mighty as ever it was, and if the Christian Church 
would keep more closely to it, and would realise more 
fully that the Cross does not need to be propped up 
so much as to be proclaimed, I think we should see 
that it is so. That sword has not lost its temper, 
and modern modes of warfare have not antiquated it. 
As David said to the high priests at Nob, when he 
was told that Goliath’s sword was hid behind the 
ephod, ‘Give me that. There is none like it. It was 
not miracles, it was the Gospel that was preached, 
which was ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ 

And that message was preached with earnestness. 


v. 13] PAUL AT PHILIPPI 113 


There is one point in which every successful servant 
of Jesus Christ who has done work for Him, winning 
men to Him, has been like every other successful 
servant, and there is only one point. Some of them 
have been wise men, some of them have been foolish. 
Some of them have been clad with many puerile notions 
and much rubbish of ceremonial and sacerdotal theories. 
Some of them have been high Calvinists, some of them 
low Arminians; some of them have been scholars, 
some of them could hardly read. But they have all 
had this one thing: they believed with all their hearts 
what they spake. They fulfilled the Horatian principle, 
‘If you wish me to weep, your own eyes must over- 
flow ’—and if you wish me to believe, you must speak, 
not ‘ with bated breath and whispering humbleness,’ but 
as if you yourself believed it, and were dead set on 
getting other people to believe it, too. 

And then the third thing that Paul had we have, 
and that is the presence of the Christ. Note what 
it says in the context about one convert who was 
made that morning, Lydia, ‘whose heart the Lord 
opened. Now I am not going to deduce Calvinism 
or any other ‘ism’ from these words, but I pray you 
to note that there is emerging on the surface here 
what runs all through this book of Acts, and animates 
the whole of it, viz., that Jesus Christ Himself is 
working, doing all the work that is done through His 
servants. Wherever there are men aflame with that 
with which every Christian man and woman should be 
aflame, the consciousness of the preciousness of their 
Master, and their own responsibility for the spreading 
of His Name, there, depend upon it, will be the Christ 
to aid them. The picture with which one of the 
Evangelists closes his Gospel will be repeated: ‘They 

VOL. II. H 





114 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cm xv. _ 


went everywhere preaching the word, the Lord also 


working with them, and confirming the word with 
signs following,’ i 

Dear brethren, the vision of the man of Macedonia 
which drew Paul across the water from Troas to Philippi 
speaks to us. ‘Come over and help us, comes from 
many voices. And if we, in however humble and ob- 
scure, and as the foolish purblind world calls it, ‘small,’ 
way, yield to the invitation, and try to do what in us 
lies, then we shall find that, like Paul by the riverside 
in that oratory, we are building better than we know, 
and planting a little seed, the springing whereof God 
will bless. ‘Thou sowest not that which shall be, but 
bare grain... and God giveth it a body as it hath 
pleased Him.’ 


THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI 


‘And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught 
Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, 20. And 
brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly 
trouble our city, 21. And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, 
neither to observe, being Romans. 22. And the multitude rose up together against 
them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 
23. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, 
charging the jailer to keep them safely: 24. Who, having received such a charge, 
thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. 25. And 
at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners 
heard them. 26. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the founda- 
tions of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and 
every one’s bands were loosed. 27. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of 
his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have 
killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28. But Paul cried with 
a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29. Then he called 
for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and 
Silas, 30. And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 
31. And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and 
thy house. 32. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that 


were in his house. 33. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed ~ 


their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34. And when he 
had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing 
in God with all his house.’—Acrts xvi. 19-34. 


THIs incident gives us the Apostle’s first experience of 
purely Gentile opposition. The whole scene has a 


vs. 19-34] THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI 115 


different stamp from that of former antagonisms, and 
reminds us that we have passed into Europe. The 
accusers and the grounds of accusation are new. For- 
merly Jews had led the attack; now Gentiles do so. 
Crimes against religion were charged before; now 
crimes against law and order. Hence the narrative is 
more extended, in accordance with the prevailing habit 
of the book, to dilate on the first of a series and to 
summarise subsequent members of it. We may note 
the unfounded charge and unjust sentence; the joyful 
confessors and the answer to their trust; the great 
light that shone on the jailer’s darkness. 

I. This was a rough beginning of the work undertaken 
at the call of Christ. Less courageous and faithful 
men might have thought, ‘Were we right in “ assuredly 
gathering” that His hand pointed us hither, since this 
is the reception we find?’ But though the wind meets 
us as soon as we clear the harbour, the salt spray dash- 
ing in our faces is no sign that we should not have left 
shelter. A difficult beginning often means a prosperous 
course; and hardships are not tokens of having made 
a mistake. 

The root of the first antagonism to the Gospel 
in Europe was purely mercenary. The pythoness’s 
masters had no horror of Paul’s doctrines. They were 
animated by no zeal for Apollo. They only saw a 
source of profit drying up. Infinitely more respectable 
was Jewish opposition, which was, at all events, the 
perverted working of noble sentiments. Zeal for 
religion, even when the zeal is impure and the notions 
of religion imperfect, is higher than mere anger at 
pecuniary loss. How much of the opposition since and 
to-day comes from the same mean source! Lust and 
appetite organise profitable trades, in which ‘the 





116 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvt. 


money has no smell,’ however foul the cesspool from 
which it has been brought. And when Christian people 
set themselves against these abominations, capital 
takes the command of the mob of drink-sellers and 
consumers, or of those from haunts of fleshly sin, and 
shrieks about interfering with honest industry, and 
seeking to enforce sour-faced Puritanism on society. 
The Church may be very sure that it is failing in some 
part of its duty, if there is no class of those who fatten 
on providing for sin howling at its heels, because it is 
interfering with the hope of their gains. 

The charge against the little group took no heed of 
the real character of their message. It artfully put 
prominent their nationality. These early anti-Semitic 
agitators knew the value of a good solid prejudice, and 
of a nickname. ‘Jews’—that was enough. The rioters 
were ‘Romans —of a sort, no doubt, but it was poor pride 
for a Macedonian to plume himself on having lost his 
nationality. The great crime laid to Paul’s charge was 
—troubling the city. So it always is. Whether it be 
George Fox, or John Wesley, or the Salvation Army, 
the disorderly elements of every community attack the 
preachers of the Gospel in the name of order, and break 
the peace in their eagerness to have it kept. There 
was no ‘trouble’ in Philippi, but the uproar which they 
themselves were making. The quiet praying-place by 
the riverside, and the silencing of the maiden’s shout 
in the streets, were not exactly the signs of disturbers 
of civic tranquillity. 

The accuracy of the charge may be measured by the 
ignorance of the accusers that Paul and his friends were 
in any way different from the run of Jews. No doubt 
they were supposed to be teaching Jewish practices, 
which were supposed to be inconsistent with Roman 


idee = 


vs. 19-34] THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI 117 


citizenship. But if the magistrates had said, ‘What 
eustoms?’ the charge would have collapsed. Thank 
God, the Gospel has a witness to bear against many 
‘customs’; but it does not begin by attacking even these, 
much less by prescribing illegalities. Its errand was 
and is to the individual first. It sets the inner man 
right with God, and then the new life works itself out, 
and will war against evils which the old life deemed 
good; but the conception of Christianity as a code 
regulating actions is superficial, whether it is held by 
friends or foes. 

There is always a mob ready to follow any leader, 
especially if there is the prospect of hurting somebody. 
The lovers of tranquillity showed how they loved it by 
dragging Paul and Silas into the forum, and bellow- 
ing untrue charges against them. The mob seconded 
them; ‘they rose up together [with the slave-owners] 
against Paul and Silas.’ The magistrates, knowing the 
ticklish material that they had to deal with, and seeing 
only a couple of Jews from nobody knew where, did 
not think it worth while to inquire or remonstrate. 
They were either cowed or indifferent; and so, to show 
how zealous they and the mob were for Roman law, 
they drove a coach-and-six clean through it, and 
without the show of investigation, scourged and threw 
into prison the silent Apostles. It was a specimen of 
what has happened too often since. How many saints 
have been martyred to keep popular feeling in good 
tune! And how many politicians will strain conscience 
to-day, because they are afraid of what Luke here un- 
politely calls ‘the multitude, or as we might render it, 
‘the mob, but which we now fit with a much more 
respectful appellation! 

The jailer, on his part, in the true spirit of small 


118 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xvz. 


officials, was ready to better his instructions. It is dan- 
gerous to give vague directions to such people. When 
the judge has ordered unlawful scourging, the turnkey 
is not likely to interpret the requirement of safe keep- 
ing too leniently. One would not look for much human 
kindness in a Philippian jail. So it was natural that 
the deepest, darkest, most foul-smelling den should be 
chosen for the two, and that they should be thrust, 
bleeding backs and all, into the stocks, to sleep if 
they could. 

II. These birds could sing in a darkened cage. The 
jailer’s treatment of them after his conversion shows 
what he had neglected to do at first. They had no 
food; their bloody backs were unsponged; they were 
thrust into a filthy hole, and put in a posture of tor- 
ture. No wonder that they could not sleep! But what 
hindered sleep would, with most men, have sorely 
dimmed trust and checked praise. Not so with them. 
God gave them ‘songs in the night. We can hear 
the strains through all the centuries, and they bid 
us be cheerful and trustful, whatever befalls. Surely 
Christian faith never is more noble than when it 
triumphs over circumstances, and brings praises from 
lips which, if sense had its way, would wail and groan. 
‘This is the victory that overcometh the world. The 
true anesthetic is trust in God. No wonder that the 
baser sort of prisoners—and base enough they probably 
were—‘ were listening to them, for such sounds had 
never been heard there before. In how many a prison 
have they been heard since! 

We are not told that the Apostles prayed for deliver- 
ance. Such deliverance had not been always granted. 
Peter indeed had been set free, but Stephen and James 
had been martyred, and these two heroes had no ground 





vs. 19-34] THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI 119 


to expect a miracle to free them. But thankful trust 
is always an appeal toGod. And it is always answered, 
whether by deliverance from or support in trial. 

This time deliverance came. The tremor of the 
earth was the token of God’s answer. It does not 
seem likely that an earthquake could loosen fetters 
in a jail full of prisoners, but more probably the 
opening of the doors and the falling off of the chains 
were due to a separate act of divine power, the earth- 
quake being but the audible token thereof. At all 
events, here again, the first of a series has dis- 
tinguishing features, and may stand as type of all its 
successors. God will never leave trusting hearts to 
the fury of enemies. He sometimes will stretch out 
a hand and set them free, He sometimes will leave 
them to bear the utmost that the world can do, but 
He will always hear their cry and save them. Paul 
had learned the lesson which Philippi was meant to 
teach, when he said, though anticipating a speedy 
death by martyrdom, ‘The Lord will deliver me from 
every evil work, and will save me into His heavenly 
Kingdom.’ 

III. The jailer behaves as such a man in his position 
would do. He apparently slept in a place that com- 
manded a view of the doors; and he lay dressed, with 
his sword beside him, in case of riot or attempted 
escape. His first impulse on awaking is to look at the 
gates. They are open; then some of his charge have 
broken them. His immediate thought of suicide not 
only shows the savage severity of punishment which 
he knew would fall on him, but tells a dreary tale of 
the desperate sense of the worthlessness of life and 
blank ignorance of anything beyond which then in- 
fected the Roman world. Suicide, the refuge of cowards 





120 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {[ca. xvi 


or of pessimists, sometimes becomes epidemic. Faith 
must have died and hope vanished before a man can 
say, ‘I will take the leap into the dark.’ 

Paul’s words freed the man from one fear, but woke 
a less selfish and profounder awe. What did all this 
succession of strange things mean? Here are doors 
open; how came that? Here are prisoners with the 
possibility of escape refusing it; how came that? Here 
is one of his victims tenderly careful of his life and 
peacefulness, and taking the upper hand of him; how 
came that? A nameless awe begins to creep over him; 
and when he gets lights, and sees the two whom he 
had made fast in the stocks standing there free, and 
yet not caring to go forth, his rough nature is broken 
down. He recognises his superiors. He remembers 
the pythoness’s testimony, that they told ‘the way of 
salvation.’ 

His question seems ‘psychologically impossible’ to 
critics, who have probably never asked it themselves. 
Wonderful results follow from the judicious use of 
that imposing word ‘psychologically’; but while we 
are not to suppose that this man knew all that ‘salva- 
tion’ meant, there is no improbability in his asking 
such a question, if due regard is paid to the whole pre- 
ceding events, beginning with the maiden’s words, and 
including the impression of Paul’s personality and the 
mysterious freeing of the prisoners. 

His dread was the natural fear that springs when 
a man is brought face to face with God; and his 
question, vague and ignorant as it was, is the ery of 
the dim consciousness that lies dormant in all men— 
the consciousness of needing deliverance and healing. 
It erred in supposing that he had to ‘do’ anything; 
but it was Bnsalabery right in supposing that he needed 


vs. 19-34] THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI 121 


salvation, and that Paul could tell him how to get it. 
How many of us, knowing far more than he, have 
never asked the same wise question, or have never 
gone to Paul for an answer? It is a question which 
we should all ask; for we all need salvation, which is 
deliverance from danger and healing for soul-sickness. 

Paul’s answer is blessedly short and clear. Its brevity 
and decisive plainness are the glory of the Gospel. It 
crystallises into a short sentence the essential directory 
for all men. 

See how little it takes to secure salvation. But see 
how much it takes; for the hardest thing of all is to 
be content to accept it as a gift, ‘without money and 
without price. Many people have listened to sermons 
all their lives, and still have no clear understanding of 
the way of salvation. Alas that so often the divine 
simplicity and brevity of Paul’s answer are darkened 
by a multitude of irrelevant words and explanations 
which explain nothing! 

The passage ends with the blessing which we may all 
receive. Of course the career begun then had to be 
continued by repeated acts of faith, and by growing 
knowledge and obedience. The incipient salvation is 
very incomplete, but very real. There is no reason 
to doubt that, for some characters, the only way of 
becoming Christians is to become so by one dead-lift of 
resolution. Some things are best done slowly; some 
things best quickly. One swift blow makes a cleaner 
fracture than filing or sawing. The light comes into 
some lives like sunshine in northern latitudes, with 
long dawn and slowly growing brightness; but in 
some the sun leaps into the sky in a moment, as in the 
tropics. What matter how long it takes to rise, if it 
does rise, and climb to the zenith ? 





THE GREAT QUESTION AND THE PLAIN 
ANSWER 


‘He brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to besaved? 31. And they 
said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’—Acrs xvi. 30, 31. 
THE keeper of a Macedonian jail was not likely to be 
a very nervous or susceptible person. And so the 
extraordinary state of agitation and panic into which 
this rough jailer was cast needs some kind of explana- 
tion. There had been, as you will all remember, an 
earthquake of a strange kind, for it not only opened 
the prison doors, but shook the prisoner's chains off. 
The doors being opened, there was on the part of the 
jailer, who probably ought not to have been asleep, 
a very natural fear that his charge had escaped. 

So he was ready, with that sad willingness for 
suicide which marked his age, to cast himself on his 
sword, when Paul encouraged him. 

That fear then was past; what was he afraid of 
now? He knew the prisoners were all safe; why 
should he have come pale and trembling? Perhaps 
we shall find an answer to the question in another 
one. Why should he have gone to Paul and Silas, his 
two prisoners, for an anodyne to his fears? 

The answer to that may possibly be found in re- 
membering that for many days before this a singular 
thing had happened. Up and down the streets of 
Philippi a woman possessed with ‘a spirit of divina- 
tion’ had gone at the heels of these two men, proclaim- 
ing in such a way as to disturb them: ‘These are the 
servants of the Most High God, which show unto us 
the way of salvation.’ It was a new word and a new 
idea in Philippi or in Macedonia. This jailer had got 

122 





vs.30,31] THE GREAT QUESTION 123 


it into his mind that these two men hadin their 
hands a good which he only dimly understood 
panic caused by the earthquake deepened in 
consciousness of some supernatural atmosphere abo 
him, and stirred in his rude nature unwonted aspira 
tions and terrors other than he had known, which cast 
him at Paul’s feet with this strange question. 

Now do you think that the jailer’s question was a 
piece of foolish superstition? I daresay some of you 
do, or some of you may suppose too that it was one 
very unnecessary for him or anybody to ask. So I 
wish now, in a very few words, to deal with these 
three points—the question that we should all ask, the 
answer that we may all take, the blessing that we may 
all have. 

I. The question that we should all ask. 

I know that it is very unfashionable nowadays to 
talk about ‘salvation’ as man’s need. The word has 
come to be so worn and commonplace and technical 
that many men turn away from it; but for all that, let 
me try to stir up the consciousness of the deep necessity 
that it expresses. 

What is it to be saved? Two things; to be healed 
and to be safe. In both aspects the expression is 
employed over and over again in Scripture. It means 
either restoration from sickness or deliverance from 
peril. I venture to press upon every one of my hearers 
these two. considerations—we all need healing from 
sickness; we all need safety from peril. 

Dear brethten, most of you are entire strangers to 
me; I daresay many of you never heard my voice 
before, and probably may never hear it again. But 
yet, because ‘we have all of us one human heart, a 
brother-man comes to you as possessing with you one 





) : 
124 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cH. xvE 


common experience, and ventures to say on the 

gth of his knowledge of himself, if on no other 

sand, ‘We have all sinned and come short of the 
slory of God.’ 

Mind, I am not speaking about vices. Ihave no doubt © 
you are a perfectly respectable man, in all the ordinary 
relations of life. I am not speaking about crimes. I 
daresay there may be a man or two here that has been 
in a dock in his day. Possibly. It does not matter 
whether there is or not. But I am not speaking 
about either vices or crimes; I am speaking about how 
we stand in reference to God. AndI pray you to bring 
yourselves—for no one can do it for you, and no words 
of mine can do anything but stimulate you to the act— 
face to face with the absolute and dazzlingly pure 
righteousness of your Father in Heaven, and to feel 
the contrast between your life and what you know He 
desires you to be. Be honest with yourselves in asking 
and answering the question whether or not you have 
this sickness of sin, its paralysis in regard to good or 
its fevered inclination to evil. If salvation means 
being healed of a disease, we all have the disease; and 
whether we wish it or no, we want the healing. 

And what of the other meaning of the word? Salva- 
tion means being safe. Are you safe? Am I safe? 
Is anybody safe standing in front of that awful law 
that rules the whole universe, ‘Whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap’? I am not going to 
talk about any of the moot points which this generation 
has such a delight in discussing, as to the nature, the 
duration, the purpose, or the like, of future retribution. 
All that Iam concerned in now is that all men, deep 
down in the bottom of their consciousness—and you 
and I amongst the rest—know that there 7s such a 


vs. 30,31] THE GREAT QUESTION 125 


thing as retribution here; and if there be a life beyond 
the grave at all, necessarily in an infinitely intenser 
fashion there. Somewhere and somehow, men will 
have to lie on the beds that they have made; to drink 
as they have brewed. If sin means separation from 
God, and separation from God means, as it assuredly 
does, death, then I ask you—and there is no need for 
any exaggerated words about it—Are we not in danger? 
And if salvation be a state of deliverance from sickness, 
and a state of deliverance from peril, do we not need it? 

Ah, brethren, I venture to say that we need it more 
than anything else. You will not misunderstand me as 
expressing the slightest depreciation of other remedies 

.that are being extensively offered now for the various 

evils under which society and individuals groan. I 
heartily sympathise with them all, and would do my 
part to help them forward; but I cannot but feel that 
whilst culture of the intellect, of the taste, of the sense 
of beauty, of the refining agencies generally, is very 
valuable; and whilst moral and social and economical 
and political changes will all do something, and some 
of them a great deal, to diminish the sum of human 
misery, you have to go deeper down than these reach. 
It is not culture that we want most; it is salvation. 
Brethren, you and I are wrong in our relation to God, 
and that means death and—if you do not shrink from 
the vulgar old word—damnation. We are wrong in 
our relation to God, and that has to be set right before 
we are fundamentally and thoroughly right. That is 
to say, salvation is our deepest need. 

Then how does it come that men go on, as so many 
of my friends here now have gone on, all their days 
paying no attention to that need? Is there any 
folly, amidst all the irrationalities of that irrational 


/ 
/ 
/ 


/ 






126 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ([cn. xv1 


creature man, to be matched with the folly of steadily 
refusing to look forward and settle for ourselves the 
prime element in our condition—viz., our relation to 
God? Strange is it not—that power that we have of 
refusing to look at the barometer when it is going 
down, of turning away from unwholesome subjects 
just because we know them to be so unwelcome and 
threatening, and of buying a moment's exemption from 
discomfort at the price of a life’s ruin? 

Do you remember that old story of the way in which 
the prisoners in the time of the French Revolution 
used to behave? The tumbrils came every morning 
and carried off a file of them to the guillotine, and 
the rest of them had a ghastly make-believe of carry- 
ing on the old frivolities of the life of the salons and 
of society. And it lasted for an hour or two, but 
the tumbril came next morning all the same, and the 
guillotine stood there gaping in the Place. And so it 
is useless, although it is so frequently done by so many 
of us, to try to shut out facts instead of facing them. 
A man is never so wise as when he says to himself, 
‘Let me fairly know the whole truth of my relation to 
the unseen world in so far as it can be known here, 
and if that is wrong, let me set about rectifying it if 
it be possible.’ ‘What will ye do in the end?’ is the . 
wisest question that a man can ask himself, when the 
end is as certain as it is with us, and as unsatisfactory 
as I am afraid it threatens to be with some of us if we 
continue as we are. 

Have I not a right to appeal to the half-sleeping and 
half-waking consciousness that endorses my words in 
some hearts as I speak? O brethren, you would be 
far wiser men if you did like this jailer in the 
Macedonian prison, came and gave yourselves no rest 


vs.30,31] THE GREAT QUESTION 127 


till you have this question cleared up, ‘What must 
I do to be saved ?’ 

There was an old Rabbi who used to preach to his 
disciples, ‘Repent the day before you die. And when 
they said to him, ‘Rabbi, we do not know what day 
we are going to die.’ ‘Then,’ said he, ‘repent to-day.’ 
And so I say to you, ‘Settle about the end before the 
end comes, and as you do not know when it may come, 
settle about it now.’ 

Il. That brings me to the next point here, viz., the 
blessed, clear answer that we may all take. 

Paul and Silas were not non-plussed by this question, 
nor did they reply to it in the fashion-in which many 
men would have answered it. Take a specimen of other 
answers. If anybody were so far left to himself as 
to go with this question to some of our modern wise men 
and teachers, they would say, ‘Saved? My good fellow, 
there is nothing to be saved from. Get rid of delusions, 
and clear your mind of cant and superstition.’ Or they 
would say, ‘Saved? Well, if you have gone wrong, do 
the best you can in the time to come.’ Or if you went 
to some of our friends they would say, ‘Come and be 
baptized, and receive the grace of regeneration in holy 
baptism; and then come to the sacraments, and be 
faithful and loyal members of the Church which has 
Apostolic succession in it. And some would say, ‘Set 
yourselves to work and toil and labour’ And some 
would say, ‘ Don’t trouble yourselves about such whims. 
A short life and a merry one; make the best of it, and 
jump the life to come. Neither cold morality, nor 
godless philosophy, nor wild dissipation, nor narrow 
ecclesiasticism prompted Paul’s answer. He said, 
‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved.’ 





128 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {[ca. xv. 


What did that poor heathen man know about the 
Lord Jesus Christ? Next to nothing. How could he 
believe upon Him if he knew so little about Him? 
Well, you hear in the context that this summary 
answer to the question was the beginning, and not 
the end, of a conversation, which conversation, no 
doubt, consisted largely in extending and explaining 
the brief formulary with which it had commenced. 
But it is a grand thing that we can put the all-essential 
truth into half a dozen simple words, and then ex- 
pound and explain them as’ may be necessary. And 
I come to you now, dear brethren, with nothing newer 
or more wonderful, or more out of the ordinary way 
than the old threadbare message which men have been 
preaching for nineteen hundred years, and have not 
exhausted, and which some of you have heard for a 
lifetime, and have never practised, ‘Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ.’ 

Now I am not going to weary you with mere dis- 
sertations upon the significance of these words. But let 
me single out two points about them, which perhaps 
though they may be perfectly familiar to you, may 
come to you with fresh force from my lips now. 

Mark, first, whom it is that we are to believe on. 
‘ The Lord, that is the divine Name; ‘Jesus, that is the 
name of a Man; ‘ Christ,’ that is the name of an office. 
And if you put them all together, they come to this, 
that He on whom we sinful men may put our sole trust 
and hope for our healing and our safety, is the Son of 
God, who came down upon earth to live our life and 
to die our death that He might bear on Himself our 
sins, and fulfil all which ancient prophecy and symbol 
had proclaimed as needful, and therefore certain to be 
done, for men. It is not a starved half-Saviour whose 


vs.30,31] THE GREAT QUESTION _129 


name is only Jesus, and neither Lord nor Christ, faith 
in whom will save you. You must grasp the whole 
revelation of His nature and His power if from Him 
there is to flow the life that you need. 

And note what it is that we are to exercise towards 
Jesus Christ. To ‘believe on Him’ is a very different 
thing from believing Him. You may accept all that I 
have been saying about who and what He is, and be as 
far away from the faith that saves a soul as if you had 
never heard His name. To believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ is to lean the whole weight of yourselves upon 
Him. What do you do when you trust a man who 
promises you any small gift or advantage? What do 
you do when dear ones say, ‘Rest on my love’? You 
simply trust them. And the very same exercise of 
heart and mind which is the blessed cement that holds 
human society together, and the power that sheds 
peace and grace over friendships and love, is the 
power which, directed to Jesus Christ, brings all His 
saving might into exercise in our lives. Brethren, 
trust Him, trust Him as Lord, trust Him as Jesus, trust 
Him as Christ. Learn your sickness, learn your 
danger; and be sure of your Healer and rejoice in your 
security. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved.’ 

III. Lastly, consider the blessing we may all receive. 

This jailer about whom we have been speaking was 
a heathen when the sun set and a Christian when it 
rose. On the one day he was groping in darkness, a 
worshipper of idols, without hope in the future, and 
ready in desperation to plunge himself into the dark- 
ness beyond, when he thought his prisoners had fled. 
In an hour or two ‘he rejoiced, believing in God with 
all his house.’ 

VOL. II. I 


130 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xv1 


A sudden conversion, you say, and sudden conver- 
sions are always suspicious. I am not so sure about 
that; they may be, or they may not be, according to 
circumstances. I know very well that it is not fashion- 
able now to preach the possibility or the probability 
of men turning all at once from darkness to light, and 
that people shrug their shoulders at the old theory 
of sudden conversions. I think, so much the worse. . 
There are a great many things in this world that 
have to be done suddenly if they are ever to be done 
at all. And I, for my part, would have far more hope 
for a man who, in one leap, sprung from the depth of 
the degradation of that coarse jailer into the light 
and joy of the Christian life, than for a man who tried 
to get to it by slow steps. You have to do everything 
in this world worth doing by a sudden resolution, how- 
ever long the preparation may have been which led 
up to the resolution. The act of resolving is always 
the act of an instant. And when men are plunged in 
darkness and profligacy, as are, perhaps, some of my 
hearers now, there is far more chance of their casting 
off their evil by a sudden jerk than of their unwinding 
the snake by slow degrees from their arms. There is 
no reason whatever why the soundest and solidest 
and most lasting transformation of character should 
not begin in a moment’s resolve. 

And there is an immense danger that with some of 
you, if that change does not begin in a moment's 
resolve now, you will be further away from it than 
ever you were. I have no doubt there are many 
of you who, at any time for years past, have known 
that you ought to be Christians, and who, at any time 
for years past, have been saying to yourselves: ‘ Well, 
I will think about it, and I am tending towards it, 





vs. 30,31] THESSALONICA AND BEREA 131 


but I cannot quite make the plunge. Why not; and 
why not now? You can if you will; you ought; you 
will be a better and happier man if you do. You will 
be saved from your sickness and safe from your danger. 

The outcast jailer changed nationalities in a moment. 
You who have dwelt in the suburbs of Christ’s King- 
dom all your lives—why cannot you go inside the gate 
as quickly? For many of us the gradual ‘growing up 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord’ has been 
the appointed way. For some of us I verily believe 
the sudden change is the best. Some of us have a 
sunrise as in the tropics, where the one moment is grey 
and cold, and next moment the seas are lit with the 
glory. Others of us have a sunrise as at the poles, 
where a long slowly-growing light precedes the rising, 
and the rising itself is scarce observable. But it matters 
little as to how we get to Christ, if we are there, 
and it matters little whether a man’s faith grows up 
in a moment, or is the slow product of years. If only 
it be rooted in Christ it will bear fruit unto life eternal. 

And so, dear brethren, I come to you with my last 
question, this man rejoiced, believing in the Lord; why 
should not you; and why should not you now? ‘Look 
unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ 
A look is a swift act, but if it be the beginning of a 
lifelong gaze, it will be the beginning of salvation and 
of a glory longer than life. 


THESSALONICA AND BEREA 


“Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to 
Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2. And Paul, as his manner 
was, went in unto them, and three sabbath-days reasoned with them out of the 
scriptures, 3. Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and 
risen again from the dead ; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 
4. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the 





132 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvm. 


devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5. But the 
Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows 
of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and 
assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6. And 
when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers 
of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither 
also; 7. Whom Jason hath received ; and these all do contrary to the decrees of 
Cesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. 8. And they troubled the 
people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. 9. And when 
they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go. 10. And the 
brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming 
thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11. These were more noble than 
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, 
and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 12. Therefore 
many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, 
not a few.’—ACcTS xvii. 1-12. 


‘SHAMEFULLY entreated at Philippi,’ Paul tells the 
Thessalonians, he ‘ waxed bold in our God to’ preach to 
them. His experience in the former city might well 
have daunted a feebler faith, but opposition affected 
Paul as little as a passing hailstorm dints a rock. To 
change the field was common sense; to abandon the 
work would have been sin. But Paul's brave per- 
sistence was not due to his own courage; he drew it 
from God. Because he lived in communion with Him, 
his courage ‘waxed’ as dangers gathered. He knew 
that he was doing a daring thing, but he knew who 
was his helper. So he went steadily on, whatever 
might front him. His temper of mind and the source 
of it are wonderfully revealed in his simple words. 

The transference to Thessalonica illustrates another 
principle of his action; namely, his preference of great 
centres of population as fields of work. He passes 
through two less important places to establish himself 
in the great city. It is wise to fly at the head. Conquer 
the cities, and the villages will fall of themselves. That 
was the policy which carried Christianity through the 
empire like a prairie fire. Would that later missions 
had adhered to it! 

The methods adopted in Thessalonica were the usual ~ 
ones, Luke bids us notice that Paul took the same 


vs.1-12] THESSALONICA AND BEREA 133 


course of action in each place: namely, to go to the 
synagogue first, when there was one, and there to prove 
that Jesus was the Christ. The three Macedonian 
towns already mentioned seem not to have had syna- 
gogues. Probably there were comparatively few Jews 
in them, and these were ecclesiastically dependent on 
Thessalonica.. We can fancy the growing excitement 
in the synagogue, as for three successive Sabbaths the 
stranger urged his proofs of the two all-important but 
most unwelcome assertions, that their own scriptures 
. foretold a suffering Messiah,—a side of Messianic pro- 
phecy which was ignored or passionately denied—and 
that Jesus was that Messiah. Many a vehement protest 
would be shrieked out, with flashing eyes and abundant 
gesticulation, as he ‘opened’ the sense of Scripture, and 
‘quoted passages, —for that is the meaning here of the 
word rendered ‘alleging.’ He gives us a glimpse of the 
hot discussions when he says that he preached ‘in much 
conflict’ (1 Thess. ii. 2). 

With whatever differences in manner of presentation, 
the true message of the Christian teacher is still the 
message that woke such opposition in the synagogue 
of Thessalonica,—the bold proclamation of the personal 
Christ, His death and resurrection. And with whatever 
differences, the instrument of conviction is still the 
Scriptures, ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word 
of God.’ The more closely we keep ourselves to that 
message and that weapon the better. 

The effects of the faithful preaching of the gospel are 
as uniform as the method. It does one of two things to 
its hearers—either it melts their hearts and leads them 
to faith, or it stirs them to more violent enmity. It is 
either a stone of stumbling or a sure corner-stone. We 
either build on or fall over it, and at last are crushed 





134 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cua. xvu. 


by it. The converts included Jews and proselytes in 
larger numbers, as may be gathered from the distine- 
tion drawn by ‘some’—referring to the former, and ‘a 
great multitude ’—referring to the latter. Besides these 
there were a good many ladies of rank and refinement, 
as was also the case presently at Bercea. Probably 
these, too, were proselytes. 

The prominence of women among the converts, as 
soon as the gospel is brought into Europe, is interest- 
ing and prophetic. The fact of the social position of 
these ladies may suggest that the upper classes were 
freer from superstition than the lower, and may point 
a not favourable contrast with present social conditions, 
which do not result in a similar accession of women of 
‘honourable estate’ to the Church. 

Opposition follows as uniform a course as the preach- 
ing. The broad outlines are the same in each case, 
while the local colouring varies. If we compare Paul’s 
narrative in 1 Thessalonians, which throbs with emo- 
tion, and, as it were, pants with the stress of the 
conflict, with Luke’s calm account here, we see not only 
how Paul felt, but why the Jews got upariot. Luke 
says that they ‘became jealous.’ Paul expands that into 
‘they are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to 
the Gentiles that they may be saved.’ Thenit was notso 
much dislike to the preaching of Jesus as Messiah as it 
was rage that their Jewish prerogative was infringed, 
and the children’s bread offered to the dogs, that stung 
them to violent opposition. Israel had been chosen, 
that it might be God’s witness, and diffuse the treasure 
it possessed through all the world. It had become, not 
the dispenser, but the would-be monopolist, of its gift. 
Have there been no Christian communities in later 
days animated by the same spirit ? 


vs.1-12] THESSALONICA AND BEREA 135 


There were plenty of loafers in the market-place ready 
for any mischief, and by no means particular about the 
pretext for a riot. Anything that would give an oppor- 
tunity for hurting somebody, and for loot, would attract 
them as corruption does flesh-flies. So the Jewish ring- 
leaders easily got a crowd together. To tell their real 
reasons would scarcely have done, but to say that there 
was a house to be attacked, and some foreigners to 
be dragged out, was enough for the present. Jason’s 
house was probably Paul’s temporary home, where, as 
he tells us in 1 Thessalonians ii. 9, he had worked at 
his trade, that he might not be burdensome to any. 
Possibly he and Silas had been warned of the approach 
of the rioters and had got away elsewhere. At all 
events, the nest was empty, but the crowd must have its 
victims, and so, failing Paul, they laid hold of Jason. 
His offence was a very shadowy one. But since his 
day there have been many martyrs, whose only crime 
was ‘harbouring’ Christians, or heretics, or recusant 
priests, or Covenanters. Ifa bull cannot gore a man, 
it will toss his cloak. 

The charge against Jason is that he receives the 
Apostle and his party, and constructively favours their 
designs. The charge against them is that they are 
revolutionists, rebels against the Emperor,and partisans 
of a rival. Now we may note three things about the 
charge. First, it comes with a very distinct taint of 
insincerity from Jews, who were, to say the least, not 
remarkable for loyalty or peaceful obedience. The 
Gracchi are complaining of sedition! A Jew zealous for 
Cesar is an anomaly, which might excite the suspicions 
of the least suspicious ruler. The charge of breaking 
the peace comes with remarkable appropriateness from 
the leaders of a riot. They were the troublers of the 


136 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca.xvm 


city, not Paul, peacefully preaching in the synagogue. 
The wolf scolds the lamb for fouling the river. 

Again,the charges are a violent distortion of the truth. 
Possibly the Jewish ringleaders believed what they 
said, but more probably they consciously twisted Paul’s 
teachings, because they knew that no other charges 
would excite so much hostility or be so damning as 
those which they made. The mere suggestion of treason 
was often fatal. The wild exaggeration that the Chris- 
tians had ‘turned the whole civilised world upside down’ 
betrays passionate hatred and alarm, if it was genuine, 
or crafty determination to rouse the mob, if it was con- 
sciously trumped up. But whether the charges were 
believed or not by those who made them, here were 
Jews disclaiming their nation’s dearest hope, and, like 
the yelling crowd at the Crucifixion, declaring they had 
no king but Cesar. The degradation of Israel was com- 
pleted by these fanatical upholders of its prerogatives. 

But, again, the charges were true in a far other sense 
than their bringers meant. For Christianity is revolu- 
tionary, and its very aim is to turn the world upside 
down, since the wrong side is uppermost at present, and 
Jesus, not Cesar, or any king or emperor or ezar, is 
the true Lord and ruler of men. But the revolution 
which He makes is the revolution of individuals, turn- 
ing them from darkness to light; for He moulds single 
souls first and society afterwards. Violence is always 
a mistake, and the only way to change evil customs 
is to change men’s natures, and then the customs drop 
away of themselves. The true rule begins with the sway 
of hearts; then wills are submissive, and conduct is the 
expression of inward delight in a law which is sweet 
because the lawgiver is dear. 

Missing Paul, the mob fell on Jason and the brethren. 


vs.1-12] THESSALONICA AND BEREA 137 


They were ‘bound over to keep the peace.’ Evidently 
the rulers had little fear of these alleged desperate 
revolutionaries, and did as little as they dared, without 
incurring the reproach of being tepid in their loyalty. 

Probably the removal of Paul and his travelling 
companions from the neighbourhood was included in 
the terms to which Jason had to submit. Their hurried 
departure does not seem to have been caused by a 
renewal of disturbances. At all events, their Berocean ex- 
perience repeated that of Philippi and of Thessalonica, 
with one great and welcome difference. The Bercean 
Jews did exactly what their compatriots elsewhere 
would not do—they looked into the subject with their 
own eyes, and tested Paul’s assertions by Scripture. 
‘Therefore, says Luke, with grand confidence in the 
impregnable foundations of the faith, ‘many of them 
believed.’ True nobility of soul consists in willingness 
to receive the Word, combined with diligent testing of 
it. Christ asks for no blind adhesion. The true 
Christian teacher wishes for no renunciation, on the 
part of his hearers, of their own judgments. ‘Open 
your mouth and shut your eyes, and swallow what I 
give you, is not the language of Christianity, though 
it has sometimes been the demand of its professed 
missionaries, and not the teacher only, but the 
taught also, have been but too ready to exercise blind 
credulity instead of intelligent examination and clear- 
eyed faith. If professing Christians to-day were better 
acquainted with the Scriptures, and more in the habit 
of bringing every new doctrine to them as its touch- 
stone, there would be less currency of errors and firmer 
grip of truth. 


PAUL AT ATHENS 


‘Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars-hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I per- 
ceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23. For as I passed by, and beheld 
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. 
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24. God, that 
made the world, and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25. Neither is worshipped with men’s 
hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and 
allthings; 26. And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all 
the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the 
bounds of their habitation; 27. That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might 
feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one ofus: 28. Forin 
Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have 
said, For we are also His offspring. 29. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of 
God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, 
graven by art and man’s device. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked 
at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31. Because he hath 
appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that 
Man whom He hath ordained ; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in 
that He hath raised Him from the dead. 32. And when they heard of the resur- 
rection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of 
this matter. 33. So Paul departed from among them. 34. Howbeit certain men 
clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, 
and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.’—Acrts xvii. 22-34. 


‘I Am become all things to all men,’ said Paul, and his 
address at Athens strikingly exemplifies that principle of 
his action. Contrast it with his speech in the synagogue 
of Pisidian Antioch, which appeals entirely to the Old 
Testament, and is saturated with Jewish ideas, or with 
the remonstrance to the rude Lycaonian peasants (Acts 
xiv. 15, etc.), which, while handling some of the same 
thoughts as at Athens, does so in a remarkably 
different manner. There he appealed to God’s gifts of 
‘rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, the things 
most close to his hearers’ experience; here, speaking to 
educated ‘ philosophers, he quotes Greek poetry, and 
sets forth a reasoned declaration of the nature of the 
Godhead and the relations of a philosophy of history 
and an argument against idolatry. The glories of 
Greek art were around him; the statues of Pallas 
Athene and many more fair creations looked down on 
the little Jew who dared to proclaim their nullity as 


representations of the Godhead. 
138 





vs. 22-34] PAUL AT ATHENS 1389 


Paul's flexibility of mind and power of adapting him- 
self to every circumstance were never more strikingly 
shown than in that great address to the quick-witted 
Athenians. It falls into three parts: the conciliatory 
prelude (vers. 22, 23); the declaration of the Unknown 
God (vers. 24-29); and the proclamation of the God- 
ordained Man (vers. 30, 31). 

I. We have, first, the conciliatory prelude. It is 
always a mistake for the apostle of a new truth to 
begin by running a tilt at old errors. It is common 
sense to seek to find some point in the present beliefs 
of his hearers to which his message may attach itself. 
An orator who flatters for the sake of securing favour 
for himself is despicable ; a missionary who recognises 
the truth which lies under the system which he seeks 
to overthrow, is wise. 

It is incredible that Paul should have begun his 
speech to so critical an audience by charging them with 
excessive superstition, as the Authorised Version makes 
him do. Nor does the modified translation of the 
Revised Version seem to be precisely what is meant. 
Paul is not blaming the Athenians, but recording a fact 
which he had noticed, and from which he desired to 
start. Ramsay’s translation gives the truer notion of 
his meaning—‘more than others respectful of what is 
divine. ‘Superstition’ necessarily conveys a sense of 
blame, but the word in the original does not. 

We can see Paul as a stranger wandering through the 
city, and noting with keen eyes every token of the all- 
pervading idolatry. He does not tell his hearers that 
his spirit burned within him when he saw the city full 
of idols; but he smothers all that, and speaks only of 
the inscription which he had noticed on one, probably 
obscure and forgotten, altar: ‘To the Unknown God.’ 





140 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvu. 


Scholars have given themselves a great deal of trouble 
to show from other authors that there were such 
altars. But Paul is as good an ‘authority’ as these, 
and we may take his word that he did see such an 
inscription. Whether it had the full significance which 
he reads into it or not, it crystallised in an express 
avowal that sense of Something behind and above the 
‘gods many’ of Greek religion, which found expression 
in the words of their noblest thinkers and poets, and 
lay like a nightmare on them. 

To charge an Athenian audience, proud of their know- 
ledge, with ignorance, was a hazardous and audacious 
undertaking; to make them charge themselves was 
more than an oratorical device. It appealed to the 
deepest consciousness even of the popular mind. Even 
with this prelude, the claims of this wandering Jew to 
pose as the instructor of Epicureans and Stoics, and to 
possess a knowledge of the Divine which they lacked, 
were daring. But how calmly and confidently Paul 
makes them, and with what easy and conciliatory 
adoption of their own terminology, if we adopt the 
reading of verse 23 in Revised Version (‘What ye 
worship. . . this,’ etc.), which puts forward the abstract 
conception of divinity rather than the personal God. 

The spirit in which Paul approached his difficult 
audience teaches all Christian missionaries and contro- 
versialists a needed and neglected lesson. We should 
accentuate points of resemblance rather than of 
difference, to begin with. We should not run a tilt 
against even errors, and so provoke to their defence, 
but rather find in creeds and practices an ignorant 
groping after, and so a door of entrance for, the truth 
which we seek to recommend. 

II. The declaration of the Unknown God has been 


vs. 22-34] PAUL AT ATHENS 141 


prepared for, and now follows, and with it is bound up 
a polemic against idolatry. Conciliation is not to be 
carried so far as to hide the antagonism between the 
truth and error. We may give non-Christian systems 
of religion credit for all the good in them, but we are 
not to blink their contrariety to the true religion. 
Conciliation and controversy are both needful; and he 
is the best Christian teacher who has mastered the 
secret of the due proportion between them. 

Every word of Paul’s proclamation strikes full and 
square at some counter belief of his hearers. He begins 
with creation, which he declares to have been the act 
of one personal God, and neither of a multitude of 
deities, as some of his hearers held, nor of an 
impersonal blind power, as others believed, nor the 
result of chance, nor eternal, as others maintained. 
He boldly proclaims there, below the shadow of the 
Parthenon, that there is but one God,—the universal 
Lord, because the universal Creator. Many con- 
sequences from that fact, no doubt, crowded into 
Paul's mind; but he swiftly turns to its bearing on the 
pomp of temples which were the glory of Athens, and 
the multitude of sacrifices which he had beheld on 
their altars. The true conception of God as the 
Creator and Lord of all things cuts up by the roots 
the pagan notions of temples as dwelling-places of a 
god and of sacrifices as ministering to his needs. With 
one crushing blow Paul pulverises the fair fanes 
around him, and declares that sacrifice, as practised 
there, contradicted the plain truth as to God’s nature. 
To suppose that man can give anything to Him, or that 
He needs anything, is absurd. All heathen worship 
reverses the parts of God and man, and loses sight of 
the fact that He is the giver continually and of every- 





142 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cz. xvi. 


thing. Life in its origination, the continuance thereof 
(breath), and all which enriches it, are from Him. Then 
true worship will not be giving to, but thankfully 
accepting from and using for, Him, His manifold gifts. 

So Paul declares the one God as Creator and 
Sustainer of all. He goes on to sketch in broad outline 
‘ what we may call a philosophy of history. The 
declaration of the unity of mankind was a wholly 
strange message to proud Athenians, who believed 
themselves to be a race apart, not only from the ‘bar- 
barians,’ whom all Greeks regarded as made of other 
clay than they, but from the rest of the Greek world. 
It flatly contradicted one of their most cherished prero- 
gatives. Not only does Paul claim one origin for all 
men, but he regards all nations as equally cared for by 
the one God. His hearers believed that each people 
had its own patron deities, and that the wars of nations 
were the wars of their gods, who won for them terri- 
tory, and presided over their national fortunes. To all 
that way of thinking the Apostle opposes the con- 
ception, which naturally follows from his fundamental 
declaration of the one Creator, of His providential 
guidance of all nations in regard to their place in the 
world and the epochs of their history. 

But he rises still higher when he declares the divine 
purpose in all the tangled web of history—the variety 
of conditions of nations, their rise and fall, their glory 
and decay, their planting in their lands and their root- 
ing out,—to be to lead all men to ‘seek God.’ That is 
the deepest meaning of history. The whole course of 
human affairs is God’s drawing men to Himself. Not 
only in Judea, nor only by special revelation, but by 
the gifts bestowed, and the schooling brought to bear 
on every nation, He would stir men up to seek for Him. 


vs, 22-34] PAUL AT ATHENS 143 


But that great purpose has not been realised. There 
is a tragic ‘if haply’ inevitable; and men may refuse 
to yield to the impulses towards God. They are the 
more likely to do so, inasmuch as to find Him they must 
‘feel after Him,’ and that is hard. The tendrils of a 
plant turn to the far-off light, but men’s spirits do not 
thus grope after God. Something has come in the way 
which frustrates the divine purpose, and makes men 
blind and unwilling to seek Him. 

Paul does not at once draw the two plain inferences, 
that there must be something more than the nations 
have had, if they are to find God, even His seeking 
them in some new fashion; and that the power which 
neutralises God’s design in creation and providence is 
sin. He has a word to say about both these, but for 
the moment he contents himself with pointing to the 
fact, attested by his hearers’ consciousness, and by 
many a saying of thinkers and poets, that the failure to 
find God does not arise from His hiding Himself in 
some remote obscurity. Men are plunged, as it were, 
in the ocean of God, encompassed by Him as an atmo- 
sphere, and—highest thought of all, and not strange to 
Greek thought of the nobler sort—kindred with Him as 
both drawing life from Him and being in His image. 
Whence, then, but from their own fault, could men 
have failed to find God? If He is ‘unknown, it is not 
because He has shrouded Himself in darkness, but 
because they do not love the light. One swift glance 
at the folly of idolatry, as demonstrated by this thought 
of man’s being the offspring of God, leads naturally to 
the properly Christian conclusion of the address. 

III. It is probable that this part of it was prematurely 
ended by the mockery of some and the impatience of 
others, who had had enough of Paul and his talk, and 





144 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xv 


who, when they said, ‘We will hear thee again, meant, 
‘We will not hear you now.’ But, even in the compass - 
permitted him, he gives much of his message. 

We can but briefly note the course of thought. He 
comes back to his former word ‘ignorance,’ bitter pill 
as it was for the Athenian cultured class to swallow. 
He has shown them how their religion ignores or con- 
tradicts the true conceptions of God and man. But he 
no sooner brings the charge than he proclaims God's 
forbearance. And he no sooner proclaims God's for- 
bearance than he rises to the full height of his mission 
as God’s ambassador, and speaks in authoritative tones, 
as bearing His ‘commands.’ 

Now the hint in the previous part is made more 
plain. The demand for repentance implies sin. Then 
the ‘ignorance’ was not inevitable or innocent. There 
was an element of guilt in men’s not feeling after God, 
and sin is universal, for ‘all men everywhere’ are 
summoned to repent. Philosophers and artists, and 
cultivated triflers, and sincere worshippers of Pallas and 
Zeus, and all ‘barbarian’ people, are alike here. That 
would grate on Athenian pride, as it grates now on 
ours. The reason for repentance would be as strange 
to the hearers as the command was—a universal 
judgment, of which the principle was to be rigid 
righteousness, and the Judge, not Minos or Rhada- 
manthus, but ‘a Man’ ordained for that function. 

What raving nonsense that would appear to men 
who had largely lost the belief in a life beyond the 
grave! The universal Judgea man! No wonder that 
the quick Athenian sense of the ridiculous began to 
rise against this Jew fanatic, bringing his dreams 
among cultured people like them! And the proof 
which he alleged as evidence to all men that it is so, 


vs. 22-34] THE MAN WHOIS JUDGE 145 


would sound even more ridiculous than the assertion 
meant to be proved. ‘A man has been raised from the 
dead; and this anonymous Man, whom nobody ever 
heard of before, and who is no doubt one of the 
speaker’s countrymen, is to judge us, Stoics, Epi- 
cureans, polished people, and we are to be herded to 
His bar in company with Beeotians and barbarians! 
The man is mad.’ 

So the assembly broke up in inextinguishable laugh- 
ter, and Paul silently ‘departed from among them,’ 
having never named the name of Jesus to them. He 
never more earnestly tried to adapt his teaching to his 
audience; he never was more unsuccessful in his 
attempt by all means to gain some. Was it a remem- 
brance of that scene in Athens that made him write to 
the Corinthians that his message was ‘to the Greeks 
foolishness’? 


THE MAN WHO IS JUDGE 


a... He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath 
ordained ; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised 
Him from the dead.’—ActTs xvii. 31. 

I. The Resurrection of Jesus gives assurance of 
judgment. 

(a) Christ’s Resurrection is the pledge of ours. 

The belief in a future life, as entertained by Paul's 
hearers on Mars Hill, was shadowy and dashed with 
much unbelief. Disembodied spirits wandered ghost- 
like and spectral in a shadowy underworld. 

The belief in the Resurrection of Jesus converts the 
Greek peradventure into a fact. It gives that belief 
solidity and makes it easier to grasp firmly. Unless 

VOL. II. K 





146 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cx. xvm. 


the thought of a future life is completed by the belief 
that it is a corporeal life, it will never have definiteness 
and reality enough to sustain itself as a counterpoise 
to the weight of things seen. 

(b) Resurrection implies judgment. 

A future bodily life affirms individual identity as 
persisting beyond the accident of death, and can only 
be conceived of as a state in which the earthly life is 
fully developed in its individual results. The dead, 
who are raised, are raised that they may ‘receive the 
things done in the body, according to that they have 
done, whether it be good or bad. Historically, the 
two thoughts have always gone together; and as has 
been the clearness with which a resurrection has been 
held as certain, so has been the force with which the 
anticipation of judgment to come has impinged on 
conscience. 

Jesus is, even in this respect, our Example, for the 
glory to which He was raised and in which He reigns 
now is the issue of His earthly life; and in His Resur- 
rection and Ascension we have the historical fact which 
certifies to all men that a life of self-sacrifice here will 
assuredly flower into a life of glory there, ‘Ours the 
Cross, the grave, the skies,’ 

II. The Resurrection of Jesus gives the assurance 
that He is Judge. 

The bare fact that He is risen does not carry that assur- 
ance; we have to take into account that He has risen. 

After such a life. 

His Resurrection was God’s setting the seal of His 
approval and acceptance on Christ’s work ; His endorse- 
ment of Christ’s claims to special relations with Him; 
His affirmation of Christ's sinlessness. Jesus had de- 
clared that He did always the things that pleased the 


v.31] THE MAN WHO IS JUDGE 147 


Father; had claimed to be the pure and perfect reali- 
sation of the divine ideal of manhood; had presented 
Himself as the legitimate object of utter devotion and 
of religious trust, love, and obedience, and as the only 
way to God. Men said that He was a blasphemer ; 
God said, and said most emphatically, by raising Him 
from the dead: ‘This is My beloved Ben, in whom I 
am well pleased.’ 

With such a sequel. 

‘Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, 
and that fact sets Him apart from others who, according 
to Seripture, have been raised. His resurrection is, if 
Wwe may use such a figure, a point; His Ascension and 
Session at the right hand of God are the line into 
which the point is prolonged. And from both the point 
and the line come the assurance that He is the Judge. 

III. The risen Jesus is Judge because He is Man. 

That seems a paradox. It is a commonplace that we 
are incompetent to judge another, for human eyes 
eannot read the secrets of a human heart, and we 
can only surmise, not know, each other’s motives, 
which are the all-important part of our deeds. But 
when we rightly understand Christ’s human nature, 
we understand how fitted He is to be our Judge, and 
how blessed it is to think of Him as such. Paul tells 
the Athenians with deep significance that He who is to 
be their and the world’s Judge is ‘the Man.’ He sums 
up human nature in Himself, He is the ideal and the 
real Man. 

And further, Paul tells his hearers that God judges 
‘through’ Him, and does so ‘in righteousness.’ He 
is fitted to be our Judge, because He perfectly and 
completely bears our nature, knows by experience all 
its weaknesses and windings, as from the inside, so 





148 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xv. 


to speak, and is ‘wondrous kind’ with the kindness 
which ‘fellow-feeling’ enkindles. He knows us with the 
knowledge of a God; He knows us with the sympathy 
of a brother. 

The Man who has died for all men thereby becomes 
the Judge of all. Even in this life, Jesus and His 
Cross judge us. Our disposition towards Him is the 
test of our whole character. By their attitude to Him, 
the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. ‘What 
think ye of Christ?’ is the question, the answer to 
which determines our fate, because it reveals our 
inmost selves and their capacities for receiving blessing 
or harm from God and His mercy. Jesus Himself has 
taught us that ‘in that day’ the condition of entrance 
into the Kingdom is ‘ doing the will of My Father which 
isin heaven. He has also taught us that ‘this is the 
work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath 
sent. Faith in Jesus as our Saviour is the root from 
which will grow the good tree which will bring forth 
good fruit, bearing which our love will be ‘ made perfect, 
that we may have boldness before Him in the day of 
judgment.’ 


PAUL AT CORINTH 


‘ After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; 2, And 
found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with 
his wife Priscilla ; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from 
Rome:) and came unto them. 3. And because he was of the same craft, he abode 
with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tent-makers. 4. And 
he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the 
Greeks. 5. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was 
pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 6. And 
when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said 
unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth 
I will go unto the Gentiles. 7. And he departed thence, and entered into a certain 
man’s house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard 
to the synagogue. 8. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on 
the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and 
were baptized. 9. Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not 
afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: 10, For I am with thee, and no man 


vs. 1-11] PAUL AT CORINTH 149 


shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. 11. And he 
continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.’ 
—ActTs xviii. 1-11. 


SoLITUDE is a hard trial for sensitive natures, and tends 
to weaken their_power of work. Paul was entirely 
alone in Athens, and appears to have cut his stay 
there short, since his two companions, who were to 
have joined him in that city, did not do so till after he 
had been some time in Corinth. His long stay there 
has several well-marked stages, which yield valuable 
lessons. 

I. First, we note the solitary Apostle, seeking friends, 
toiling for bread, and withal preaching Christ. Corinth 
was a centre of commerce, of wealth, and of moral 
corruption. The celebrated local worship of Aphrodite 
fed the corruption as well as the wealth. The Apostle 
met there with a new phase of Greek life, no less 
formidable in antagonism to the Gospel than the 
culture of Athens. He tells us that he entered on 
his work in Corinth ‘in weakness, and in fear, and in 
much trembling,’ but also that he did not try to attract 
by adaptation of his words to the prevailing tastes 
either of Greek or Jew, but preached ‘Jesus Christ, 
and Him crucified, knowing that, while that appeared 
to go right in the teeth of the demands of both, it 
really met their wants. This ministry was begun, in 
his usual fashion, very unobtrusively and quietly. His 
first care was to find a home; his second, to provide 
his daily bread; and then he was free to take the 
Sabbath for Christian work in the synagogue. 

We cannot tell whether he had had any previous 
acquaintance with Aquila and his wife, nor indeed is it 
certain that they had previously been Christians. Paul’s 
reason for living with them was simply the convenience 
of getting work at his trade, and it seems probable that, 


150 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca.xvm. 


if they had been disciples, that fact would have been 
named as part of his reason. Pontus lay to the north 
of Cilicia, and though widely separated from it, was 
near enough to make a kind of bond as of fellow- 
countrymen, which would be the stronger because they 
had the same craft at their finger-ends. 

It was the wholesome practice for every Rabbi to 
learn some trade. If all graduates had to do the same 
now there would be fewer educated idlers, who are 
dangerous to society and burdens to themselves and 
their friends. What a curl of contempt would have 
lifted the lips of the rich men of Corinth if they had 
been told that the greatest man in their city was that 
little Jew tent-maker, and that in this unostentatious 
fashion he had begun to preach truths which would 
be like a charge of dynamite to all their social and 
religious order! True zeal can be patiently silent. 

Sewing rough goat’s-hair cloth into tents may be 
as truly serving Christ as preaching His name. All 
manner of work that contributes to the same end is 
the same in worth and in recompense. Perhaps the 
wholesomest form of Christian ministry is that after 
the Apostolic pattern, when the teacher can say, as 
Paul did to the people of Corinth, ‘When I was present 
with you and was in want, I was not a burden on 
any man. If not in letter, at any rate in spirit, his 
example must be followed. If the preacher would win 
souls he must be free from any taint of suspicion as to 
money. 

II. The second stage in Paul’s Corinthian residence 
is the increased activity when his friends, Silas and 
Timothy, came from Berea. We learn from Philippians 
iv. 15, and 2 Corinthians xi. 9, that they brought gifts 
from the Church at Philippi; and from 1 Thessalonians 





vs, 1-11} PAUL AT CORINTH 151 


iii. 6, that they brought something still more gladdening 
namely, good acezounts of the steadfastness of the 
Thessalopian converts. The money would make it less 
necessary to spend most of the week in manual labour ; 
the glad tidings of the Thessalonians’ ‘faith and love’ 
did bring fresh life, and the presence of his helpers 
would cheer him. So a period of enlarged activity 
followed their coming. 

The reading of verse 5, ‘Paul was constrained by 
the word, brings out strikingly the Christian impulse 
which makes syeech of the Gospela necessity. The force 
of that impulse may vary, as it did with Paul; but if 
we have any Jeep possession of the grace of God for 
ourselves, we shall, like him, feel it pressing us for 
utterance, as soon as the need of providing daily bread 
becomes less stringent and our hearts are gladdened by 
Christian communion. Itaugursill for a man’s hold of 
the word if the word does not hold him.. He who never 
felt that he was weary of forbearing, and that the word 
was like a fire, if it was ‘shut up in his bones, has need 
to ask himself if he has any belief in the Gospel. The 
craving to impart ever accompanies real possession. 

The Apostle’s solemn symbolism, announcing his 
cessation of efforts among the Jews, has of course 
reference only to Corinth, for we find him in his 
subsequent ministry adhering to his method, ‘to the 
Jew first. It is a great part of Christian wisdom in 
evangelical work to recognise the right time to give 
up efforts which have been fruitless. Much strength 
is wasted, and many hearts depressed, by obstinate 
continuance in such methods or on such fields as have 
cost much effort and yielded no fruit. We often call 

it faith, when it is only pride, which prevents the 
acknowledgment of failure. Better to learn the lessons 


152 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx.xvu. 


taught by Providence, and to try a new ‘claim,’ than to 
keep on digging and washing when we only find sand and 
mud. God teaches us by failures as well as by successes. 
Let us not be too conceited to learn the lesson or to 
confess defeat, and shift our ground accordingly. 

It is a solemn thing to say ‘I am clean. We need 
to have been very diligent, very loving, very prayerful 
to God, and very persuasive in pleading with men, 
before we dare to roll all the blame of their condem- 
nation on themselves. But we have no right to say, 
‘Henceforth I go to’ others, until we can say that we 
have done all that man—or, at any rate, that we—can 
do to avert the doom. 

Paul did not go so far away but that any whose 
hearts God had touched could easily find him. It was 
with a lingering eye to his countrymen that he took 
up his abode in the house of ‘one that feared God,’ 
that is, a proselyte; and that he settled down next 
door to the synagogue. What a glimpse of yearning 
love which cannot bear to give Israel up as hopeless, 
that simple detail gives us! And may we not say that 
the yearning of the servant is caught from the example 
of the Master? ‘How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ?’ 
Does not Christ, in His long-suffering love, linger in 
like manner round each closed heart? and if He with- 
draws a little way, does He not do so rather to stimulate 
search after Him, and tarry near enough to be found 
by every seeking heart? 

Paul’s purpose in his solemn warning to the Jews 
of Corinth was partly accomplished. The ruler of the 
synagogue ‘believed in the Lord with all his house, 
Thus men are sometimes brought to decision for Christ 
by the apparently impending possibility of His Gospel 
leaving them to themselves. ‘Blessings brighten as 


vs, 1-11] PAUL AT CORINTH 153 


they take their flight.’ Severity sometimes effects 
what forbearance fails to achieve. If the train is on 
the point of starting, the hesitating passenger will 
swiftly make up his mind and rush for a seat. It 
is permissible to press for immediate decision on the 
ground that the time is short, and that soon these 
things ‘will be hid from the eyes.’ 

We learn from 1 Corinthians i. 14, that Paul deviated 
from his usual practice, and himself baptized Crispus. 
We may be very sure that his doing so arose from no 
unworthy subserviency to an important convert, but 
indicated how deeply grateful he was to the Lord for 
giving him, as a seal to a ministry which had seemed 
barren, so encouraging a token. The opposition and 
blasphemy of many are outweighed, to a true evan- 
gelist, by the conversion of one; and while all souls 
are in one aspect equally valuable, they are unequal 
in the influence which they may exert on others. So 
it was with Crispus, for ‘many of the Corinthians 
hearing’ of such a signal fact as the conversion of the 
chief of the synagogue, likewise ‘believed. We may 
distinguish in our estimate of the value of converts, 
without being untrue to the great principle that all 
men are equally precious in Christ’s eyes. 

III. The next stage is the vision to Paul and his con- 
sequent protracted residence in Corinth. God does not 
waste visions, nor bid men put away fears which are 
not haunting them. This vision enables us to conceive 
Paul’s state of mind when it came to him. He was for 
some reason cast down. He had not been so when 
things looked much more hopeless. But though now 
he had his friends and many converts, some mood of 
sadness crept over him. Men like him are often swayed 
by impulses rising within, and quite apart from out- 





154 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xv. 


ward circumstances. Possibly he had reason to appre- 
hend that his very success had sharpened hostility, and 
to anticipate danger to life. The contents of the 
vision make this not improbable. 

But the mere calming of fear, worthy object as it is, 
is by no means the main part of the message of the 
vision. ‘Speak, and hold not thy peace, is its central 
word. Fear which makes a Christian dumb is always 
cowardly, and always exaggerated. Speech which 
comes from trembling lips may be very powerful, 
and there is no better remedy for terror than work 
for Christ. If we screw ourselves up to do what we 
fear to do, the dread vanishes, as a bather recovers 
himself as soon as his head has once been under water. 

Why was Paul not to be afraid? It is easy to say, 
‘Fear not, but unless the exhortation is accompanied 
with some good reason shown, it is wasted breath. 
Paul got a truth put into his heart which ends all 
fear—‘For I am with thee.’ Surely that is enough to 
exorcise all demons of cowardice or despondency, and 
it is the assurance that all Christ’s servants may lay 
up in their hearts, for use at all moments and in all 
moods. His presence, in no metaphor, but in deepest 
inmost reality, is theirs, and whether their fears come 
from without or within, His presence is more than 
enough to make them brave and strong. 

Paul needed a vision, for Paul had never seen Christ 
‘after the flesh, nor heard His parting promise. We do 
not need it, for we have the unalterable word, which 
He left with all His disciples when He ascended, and 
which remains true to the ends of the world and till 
the world ends. 

The consequence of Christ’s presence is pot exemption 
from attacks, but preservation in them. Men may ‘set 


vs.1-11] ‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 155 


on’ Paul, but they cannot ‘hurt’ him. The promise was 
literally fulfilled when the would-be accusers were 
contemptuously sent away by Gallio, the embodiment 
of Roman even-handedness and despising of the deepest 
things. It is fulfilled no less truly to-day; for no hurt 
can come to us if Christ is with us, and whatever does 
come is not hurt. 

‘I have much people in this city. Jesus saw what 
Paul did not, the souls yet to be won for Him. That 
loving Eye gladly beholds His own sheep, though they 
may be yet in danger of the wolves, and far from the 
Shepherd. ‘Them also He must bring’; and His servants 
are wise if, in all their labours, they cherish the courage 
that comes from the consciousness of His presence, and 
the unquenchable hope, which sees in the most de- 
graded and alienated those whom the Good Shepherd 
will yet find in the wilderness and bear back to the 
fold. Such a hope will quicken them for all service, 
and such a vision will embolden them in all peril. 


‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 


‘ And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed 
in the spirit, and testified.’—ActTs xviii. 5. 
THE Revised Version, in concurrence with most recent 
authorities, reads, instead of ‘pressed in the spirit, 
‘constrained by the word. One of these alterations 
depends on a diversity of reading, the other on a 
difference of translation. The one introduces a signifi- 
cant difference of meaning; the other is rather a 
change of expression. The word rendered here 
‘pressed, and by the Revised Version ‘constrained,’ 
is employed in its literal use in ‘ Master, the multitude 
throng Thee and press Thee, and in its metaphorical 





156 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cs. xvm. 


application in ‘The love of Christ constraineth us.’ 
There is not much difference between ‘ constrained’ 
and ‘pressed,’ but there is a large difference between 
‘in the spirit’ and ‘by the word.’ ‘Pressed in the 
spirit’ simply describes a state of feeling or mind; 
‘constrained by the word’ declares the force which 
brought about that condition of pressure or con- 
straint. What then does ‘constrained by the word’ 
refer to? It indicates that Paul's message had a grip 
of him, and held him hard, and forced him to 
deliver it. 

One more preliminary remark is that our text 
evidently brings this state of mind of the Apostle, and 
the coming of his two friends Silas and Timothy, into 
relation as cause and effect. He had been alone in 
Corinth. His work of late had not been encouraging. 
He had been comparatively silent there, and had spent 
most of his time in tent-making. But when his two 
friends came a cloud was lifted off his spirit, and he 
sprang back again, as it were, to his old form and to 
his old work. 

Now if we take that point of view with regard to 
the passage before us, I think we shall find that it 
yields valuable lessons, some of which I wish to try 
to enforce now. 

I. Let me ask you to look with me at the downcast 
Apostle. 

‘Downcast, you say; ‘is not that an unworthy word 
to use about a minister of Jesus Christ inspired as Paul 
was?’ By no means. We shall very much mistake 
both the nature of inspiration and the character of this 
inspired Apostle, if we do not recognise that he was a 
man of many moods and tremulously susceptible to 
external influences. Such music would never have 


v.5] ‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 157 


come from him if his soul had not been like an olian 
harp, hung in a tree and vibrating in response to every 
breeze. And so we need not hesitate to speak of the 
Apostle’s mood, as revealed to us in the passage before 
us, as being downcast. 

Now notice that in the verses preceding my text his 
conduct is extremely abnormal and unlike his usual 
procedure. He goes into Corinth, and he does next to 
nothing in evangelistic work. He repairs to the syna- 
gogue once a week, and talks to the Jewsthere. But that 
is all. The notice of his reasoning in the synagogue is 
quite subordinate to the notice that he was occupied 
in finding a lodging with another pauper Jew and 
stranger in the great city, and that these two poor 
men went into a kind of partnership, and tried to earn 
a living by hard work. Such procedure makes a 
singular contrast to Paul’s usual methods in a strange 
city. 

Now the reason for that slackening-of impulse and 
comparative cessation of activity is not far to seek. 
The first Epistle to Thessalonica was written immedi- 
_ately after these two brethren rejoined Paul. And 
how does the Apostle describe in that letter his feelings 
before they came? He speaks of ‘all our distress and 
affliction.’ He tells that he was tortured by anxiety 
as to how the new converts in Thessalonica were 
getting on, and could not forbear to try to find out 
whether they were still standing steadfast. Again in 
the first Epistle to the Corinthians, you will find that 
there, looking back to this period, he describes his 
feelings in similar fashion and says: ‘I was with 
you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.’ 
And if you look forward a verse or two in our chapter 
you will see that a vision came to Paul, which pre- 


158 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xvumt. 


supposes that some touch of fear, and some temp- 
tation to silence, were busy in his heart. For God 
shapes His communications according to our need, and 
would not have said, ‘Do not be afraid, and hold not 
thy peace, but speak,’ unless there had been a danger 
both of Paul’s being frightened and of his being dumb. 

And what thus brought a cloud over his sky? A 
little exercise of historical imagination will very suffi- 
ciently answer that. A few weeks before, in obedience, 
as he believed, to a direct divine command, Paul had 
made a plunge, and ventured upon an altogether new 
phase of work. He had crossed into Europe, and from 
the moment that he landed at the harbour of Philippi, 
up to the time when he took refuge in some quiet little 
room in Corinth, he had had nothing but trouble and 
danger and disappointment. The prison at Philippi, 
the riots that hounded him out of Thessalonica, the 
stealthy, hurried escape from Bercea, the almost entire 
failure of his first attempt to preach the Gospel to 
Greeks in Athens, his loneliness, and the strangeness 
of his surroundings in the luxurious, wicked, wealthy 
Greek city of Corinth—all these things weighed on 
him, and there is no wonder that his spirits went down, 
and he felt that now he must lie fallow for a time and 
rest, and pull himself together again. 

So here we have, in this great champion of the faith, 
in this strong runner of the Christian race, in this chief 
of men, an example of the fluctuation of mood, the 
variation in the way in which we look at our duties 
and our obligations and our difficulties, the slackening 
of the impulse which dominates our lives, that are too 
familiar to us all. It brings Paul nearer us to feel that 
he, too, knew these ups and downs. The force that 
drove this meteor through the darkness varied, as the 






v.5) ‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 159 


force that impels us varies to our consciousness. It 
is the prerogative of God to be immutable; men have 
their moods and their fluctuations. Kindled lights 
flicker; the sun burns steadily. An Elijah to-day 
beards Ahab and Jezebel and all their priests, and 
to-morrow hides his head in his hands, and says, ‘ Take 
me away, I am not better than my fathers.’ There will 
be ups and down in the Christian vigour of our lives, 
as well as.in all other regions, so long as men dwell 
in this material body and are surrounded by their 
present circumstances. 

Brethren, it is no small part of Christian wisdom and 
prudence to recognise this fact, both in order that it 
may prevent us from becoming unduly doubtful of 
ourselves when the ebb tide sets in on our souls, and 
also in order that we may lay to heart this other 
truth, that because these moods and changes of aspect 
and of vigour will come to us, therefore the law of life 
must be effort, and the duty of every Christian man 
be to minimise, in so far as possible, the fluctuations 
which, in some degree, are inevitable. No human hand 
has ever drawn an absolutely straight line. That is 
the ideal of the mathematician, but all ours are 
crooked. But we may indefinitely diminish the 
magnitude of the curves. No two atoms are so close 
together as that there is no film between them. No 
human life has ever been an absolutely continuous, 
unbroken series of equally holy and devoted thoughts 
and acts, but we may diminish the intervals between 
kindred states, and may make our lives so far uniform 
as that to a bystander they shall look like the bright 
circle, which a brand whirled round in the air makes 
the impression of, on the eye that beholds. We shall 
have times of brightness and of less brilliancy, of 


a a ae 


160 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvm. 


vigour and of consequent reaction and exhaustion. 
But Christianity has, for one of its objects, to help us 
to master our moods, and to bring us nearer and 
nearer, by continual growth, to the steadfast, unmov- 
able attitude of those whose faith is ever the 
same. 

Do not forget the plain lesson which comes from the 
incident before us—viz., that the wisest thing that a 
man can do, when he feels that the wheels of his 
religious being are driving heavily, is to set himself 
doggedly to the plain, homely work of daily life. Paul 
did not sit and bemoan himself because he felt this 
slackening of impulse, but he went away to Aquila, 
and said,‘ Let us set to work and make camel’s-hair 
cloth and tents. Be thankful for your homely, pro- 
saic, secular, daily task. You do not know from how 
many sickly fancies it saves you, and how many 
breaches in the continuity of your Christian feeling 
it may bridgeover. It takes you away from thinking 
about yourselves, and sometimes you cannot think 
about anything less profitably. So stick to your 
work; and if ever you feel, as Paul did, ‘cast down, 
be sure that the workshop, the office, the desk, the 
kitchen will prevent you from being ‘destroyed,’ if 
you give yourselves to the plain duties which no moods 
alter, but which can alter a great many moods. 

II. And now note the ‘constraining word.’ 

I have already said that the return of the two, 
who had been sent to see how things were going 
with the recent converts in the infant Churches, 
brought the Apostle good tidings, and so lifted off 
a great load of anxiety from his heart. No wonder! 
He had left raw recruits under fire, with no captain, 
-and he might well doubt whether they would keep 


v.5) ‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 161 


their ranks. But they did. So the pressure was lifted 
off, and the pressure being lifted off, spontaneously 
the old impulse gripped him once more; like a spring 
which leaps back to its ancient curve when some alien 
force is taken from it. It must have been a very deep 
and a very habitual impulse, which thus instantly 
reasserted itself the moment that the pressure of 
anxiety was taken out of the way. 

The word constrained him. What todo? To declare 
it. Paul’s example brings up two thoughts—that that 
impulse may vary at times, according to the pressure 
of circumstances, and may even be held in abeyance 
for a while; and that if a man is honestly and really 
a Christian, as soon as the incumbent pressure is taken 
away, he will feel, ‘ Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe 
is me if I preach not the Gospel.’ For though Paul’s 
sphere of work was different from ours, his obligation 
to work and his impulse to work were such as are, or 
should be, common to all Christians. The impulse to 
utter the word that we believe and live by seems to 
me to be, in its very nature, inseparable from earnest 
Christian faith. All emotion demands expression; and 
if a man has never felt that he must let his Christian 
faith have vent, it is a very bad sign. As certainly 
as fermentation or effervescence demands outgush, so 
certainly does emotion demand expression. We all 
know that.. The same impulse that makes a mother 
bend over her babe with unmeaning words and tokens 
that seem to unsympathetic onlookers foolish, ought 
toinfluence all Christians to speak the Name they love. 
All conviction demands expression. There may be 
truths which have so little bearing upon human life 
that he who perceives them feels little obligation to 
say anything about them. But these are the excep- 

VOL. II. L 





162 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cs xvum. 


tions; and the more weighty and the more closely 
affecting human interests anything that we have 
learned to believe as truth is, the more do we feel in 
our hearts that, in making us its believers, it has made 
us its apostles. Christ’s saying, ‘What ye hear in the 
ear, that preach ye on the housetops, expresses a 
universal truth which is realised in many regions, and 
ought to be most emphatically realised in the Christian. 
For surely of all the truths that men can catch a 
glimpse of, or grapple to their hearts, or store in their 
understandings, there are none which bring with them 
such tremendous consequences, and therefore are of 
so solemn import to proclaim to all the children of 
men, as the truth, which we profess we have received, 
of personal salvation through Jesus Christ. 

If there never had been a single commandment to that 
effect, I know not how the Christian Church or the 
Christian individual could have abstained from declar- 
ing the great and sweet Name to which it and he owe 
so much. I do not care to present this matter as a 
commandment, nor to speak now of obligation or re- 
sponsibility. The impulse is what I would fix your 
attention upon. It is inseparable from the Christian 
life. It may vary in force, as we see in the incident 
before us. It will vary in grip, according as other 
circumstances and duties insist upon being attended to. 
The form in which it is yielded to will vary indefinitely 
in individuals. But if they are Christian people it is 
always there. 

Well then, what about the masses of so-called 
Christians who feel nothing of any such constraining 
force? And what about the many who feel enough of 
it to make them also feel that they are wrong in not 
yielding to it, but not enough to make their conduct be 


v.5] ‘CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD’ 163 


influenced by it? Brethren, I venture to believe that 
the measure in which this impulse to speak the word 
and use direct efforts for somebody’s conversion is felt 
by Christians, is a very fair test of the depth of their 
own religion. Ifa vessel is half empty it will not run 
over. If it is full to the brim, the sparkling treasure 
will fall on all sides. A weak plant may never push its 
green leaves above the ground, but a strong one will 
rise into the light. A spark may be smothered in a 
heap of brushwood, but a steady flame will burn its 
way out. If this word has not a grip of you, impelling 
you to its utterance, I would have you not to be too 
sure that you have a grip of it. 

III. Lastly, we have here the witness to the word. 

‘He was constrained by the word, testifying. Now 
I do not know whether it is imposing too much mean- 
ing upon a non-significant difference of expression, if 
I ask you to note the difference between that phrase 
and the one which describes his previous activity: ‘He 
reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to 
persuade’ the Jews and the Greeks, but when the old 
impulse came back in new force, reasoning was far too 
cold a method, and Paul took to testifying. Whether that 
be so or no, mark that the witness of one’s own personal 
conviction and experience is the strongest weapon that 
a Christian can use. I do not despise the place of 
reasoning, but arguments do not often change opinions; 
they never change hearts. Logic and controversial dis- 
coursing may ‘prepare the way of the Lord,’ but it is ‘in 
the wilderness. But when a man calls aloud, ‘Come 
and hear all ye, and I will declare what God hath done. 
for my soul’; or when he tells his brother, ‘We have 
found the Messias’; or when he sticks to ‘One thing I 
know, that whereas I was blind, now I see, it is difficult 


“" 

4 

; _— re 
a 


164 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xvi. 


for any one to resist, and impossible for any one to 
answer, that way of testifying. 

It is a way that we can all adopt if we will. Christian 
men and women can all say such things. I do not forget 
that there are indirect ways of spreading the Gospel. 
Some of you think that you do enough when you give 
your money and your interest in order to diffuse it.. 
You can buy a substitute in the militia, but you cannot 
buy a substitute in Christ’s service. You have each 
some congregation to which you can speak, if it is no 
larger than Paul’s—namely, two people, Aquila and 
Priscilla. What talks they would have in their lodg- 
ing, as they plaited the wisps of black hair into rough 
cloth, and stitched the strips into tents! Aquila was 
not a Christian when Paul picked him up, but he be- 
came one very soon; and it was the preaching in the 
workshop, amidst the dust, that made him one. If we 
long to speak about Christ we shall find plenty of 
people to speak to. ‘Ye are my witnesses, saith the 
Lord.’ 

Now, dear friends, I have only one word more. I 
have no doubt there are some among us who have 
been saying, ‘ This sermon does not apply to me at all.’ 
Does it not? If it does not, what does that mean? It 
means that you have not the first requisite for spread- 
ing the word—viz. personal faith in the word. It 
means that you have put away, or at least neglected to 
take in, the word and the Saviour of whom it speaks, 
into your own lives. But it does not mean that you 
have got rid of the word thereby. It will not in that 
case lay the grip of which I have been speaking upon 
you, but it will not let you go. It will lay on you a far 
more solemn and awful clutch, and like a jailer with 
his hand on the culprit’s shoulder, will ‘constrain’ you 


v.5] GALLIO 165 


into the presence of the Judge. You can make it a 
savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. And 
though you do not grasp zt, it grasps and holds you. 
‘The word that I speak unto him, the same shall judge 
him at the last day.’ 


GALLIO 


“And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it 
were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that Ishould 
bear with you: 15. But if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, 
look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.’—ActTs xviii. 14, 15. 


THERE is something very touching in the immortality 
of fame which comes to the men who for a moment 
pass across the Gospel story, like shooting stars kindled 
for an instant as they enter our atmosphere. How 
little Gallio dreamed that he would live for ever in 
men’s mouths by reason of this one judicial dictum! 
He was Seneca’s brother, and was possibly leavened by 
his philosophy and indisposed to severity. He has been 
unjustly condemned. There are some striking lessons 
from the story. 

I. The remarkable anticipation of the true doctrine 
as to the functions of civil magistrates. 

Gallio draws a clear distinction between conduct and 
opinion, and excepts the whole of the latter region 
from his sway. It is the first ease in which the civil 
authorities refused to take cognisance of a charge 
against a man on account of his opinions. Nineteen 
hundred years have not brought all tribunals up to 
that point yet. Gallio indeed was influenced mainly 
by philosophic contempt for the trivialities of what he 
thought a superstition. We are influenced by our recog- 
nition of the sanctity of individual conviction, and still 
more by reverence for truth and by the belief that it 





166 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xvmt. 


should depend only on its own power for progress and 
on itself for the defeat of its enemies. 

II. The tragic mistake about the nature of the Gospel 
which men make. 

There is something very pathetic in the erroneous 
estimates made by those persons mentioned in Acts who 
some once or twice come in contact with the preachers 
of Christ. How little they recognise what was before 
them! Their responsibility is in better hands than 
ours. But in Gallio there is a trace of tendencies 
always in operation. 

We see in him the practical man’s contempt for mere 
ideas. The man of affairs, be he statesman or worker, 
is always apt to think that things are more than 
thoughts. Gallio, proconsul in Corinth, and his brother 
official, Pilate, in Jerusalem, both believed in powers 
that they could see. The question of the one, for 
an answer to which he did not wait, was not the 
inquiry of a searcher after truth, but the exclama- 
tion of a sceptic who thought all the contradictory 
answers that rang through the world to be demonstra- 
tions that the question had no answer. The impatient 
refusal of the other to have any concern in settling 
‘such matters’ was steeped in the same characteris- 
tically Roman spirit of impatient distrust and sus- 
picion of mere ideas. He believed in Roman force 
and authority, and thought that such harmless vision- 
aries as Paul and his company might be allowed to go 
their own way, and he did not know that they carried 
with them a solvent and constructive power before 
which the solid-seeming structure of the Empire was 
destined to crumble, as surely as thick-ribbed ice before 
the sirocco. 

And how many of us believe in wealth and material 


vs. 14,15] GALLIO 167 


progress, and regard the region of truth as very shadowy 
and remote! This isa danger besetting usall. The true 
forces that sway the world are ideas. 

We see in Gallio supercilious indifference to mere 
‘theological subtleties.’ To him Paul’s preaching and 
the Jews’ passionate denials of it seemed only a 
squabble about ‘words and names.’ Probably he had 
gathered his impression from Paul’s eager accusers, 
who would charge him with giving the name of 
‘Christ’ to Jesus. 

Gallio’s attitude was partly Stoical contempt for all 
superstitions, partly, perhaps, an eclectic belief that all 
‘these warring religions were really saying the same 
thing and differed only in words and names; and partly 
sheer indifference to the whole subject. Thus Chris- 
tianity appears to many in this day. 

' What isitin reality? Not words but power: a Name, 
indeed, but a Name which is life. Alas for us, who by 
our jangling have given colour to this misconception ! 

We see in Gallio the mistake that the Gospel has 
little relation to conduct. Gallio drew a broad distinc- 
tion between conduct and opinion, and there he was’ 
right. But he imagined that this opinion had nothing 
to do with conduct, and how wrong he was there we 
need not elaborate. 

The Gospel is the mightiest power for shaping con- 
duct. 

III. The ignorant levity with which men pass the 
crisis of their lives. 

How little Gallio knew of what a possibility was 
opened out before him! Angels were hovering unseen. 
We seldom recognise the fateful moments of our lives 
till they are past. 

The offer of salvation in Christ is eyer a crisis. It 





168 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on.xr. 


may never be repeated. Was Gallio ever again brought 
into contact with Paul or Paul’s Lord? We know not. 
He passes out of sight, the search-light is turned in 
another direction, and we lose him in the darkness. 
The extent of his criminality is in better hands than 
ours, though we cannot but let our thoughts go forward 
to the time when he, like us all, will stand at the judg- 
ment bar of Jesus, no longer a judge but judged. Let 
us hope that before he passed hence, he learned how 
full of spirit and of life the message was, which he once 
took for a mere squabble about ‘ words and names, and 
thought too trivial to occupy his court. And let us 
remember that the Jesus, whom we are sometimes 
tempted to judge as of little importance to us, will one 
day judge us, and that His judgment will settle our 
fate for evermore. 


TWO FRUITFUL YEARS 


‘And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed 
through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, 2. He 
said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they 
said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. 
3. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, 
Unto John’s baptism. 4. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism 
of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which 
should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. 5. When they heard this, they 
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6. And when Paul had laid his 
hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, 
and prophesied. 7. And all the men were about twelve. 8. And he went into the 
synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuad- 
ing the things concerning the kingdom of God. 9. But when divers were hardened, 
and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed 
from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one 
Tyrannus. 10. And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they 
which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 
11. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12. Sothat from his 
body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases 
departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.’—ActTs xix. 1-12, 


THIs passage finds Paulin Ephesus. In the meantime 
he had paid that city a hasty visit on his way back from 


vs.1-12] TWO FRUITFUL YEARS 169 


Greece, had left his friends, Aquila and Priscilla, in it, 
and had gone on to Jerusalem, thence returning to 
Antioch, and visiting the churches in Asia Minor which 
he had planted on his former journeys. From the 
inland and higher districts he has come down to the 
coast, and established himself in the great city of 
Ephesus, where the labours of Aquila, and perhaps 
others, had gathered a small band of disciples. Two 
points are especially made prominent in this passage— 
the incorporation of John’s disciples with the Church, 
and the eminent success of Paul’s preaching in 
Ephesus. 

The first of these is a very remarkable and, in some 
respects, puzzling incident. Itis tempting to bring it 
into connection with the immediately preceding nar- 
rative as to Apollos. The same stage of spiritual 
development is presented in these twelve men and in 
that eloquent Alexandrian. They and he were alike in 
knowing only of John’s baptism ;. but if they had been 
Apollos’ pupils, they would most probably have been 
led by him into the fuller light which he received 
through Priscilla and Aquila. More probably, there- 
fore, they had been John’s disciples, independently of 
Apollos. Their being recognised as ‘disciples’ is 
singular, when we consider their very small knowledge 
of Christian truth; and their not having been pre- 
viously instructed in its rudiments, if they were 
associating with the Church, is not less so. But 
improbable things do happen, and part of the reason 
for an event being recorded is often its improbability. 
Luke seems to have been struck by the singular 
similarity between Apollos and these men, and to have 
told the story, not only because of its importance but 
because of its peculiarity. 





170 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca xrx. 


The first point to note is the fact that these men 
were disciples. Paul speaks of their having ‘believed,’ 
and they were evidently associated with the Church. 
But the connection must have been loose, for they had 
not received baptism. Probably there was a fringe of 
partial converts hanging round each church, and Paul, 
knowing nothing of the men beyond the fact that he 
found them along with the others, accepted them as 
‘disciples.’ But there must have been some reason for 
doubt, or his question would not have been asked. 
They ‘believed’ in so far as John had taught the 
coming of Messiah. But they did not know that Jesus 
was the Messiah whose coming John had taught. 

Paul’s question is, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit 
when you believed?’ Obviously he missed the marks 
of the Spirit in them, whether we are to suppose that 
these were miraculous powers or moral and religious 
elevation. Now this question suggests that the 
possession of the Holy Spirit is the normal condition of 
all believers; and that truth cannot be too plainly 
stated or urgently pressed to-day. He is ‘the Spirit, 
which they that believe on Him’ shall ‘receive.’ The 
outer methods of His bestowment vary: sometimes He 
is given after baptism, and sometimes, as to Cornelius, 
before it; sometimes by laying on of Apostolic hands, 
sometimes without it. But one thing constantly 
precedes, namely, faith; and one thing constantly 
follows faith, namely, the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
Modern Christianity does not grasp that truth as 
firmly or make it as prominent as it ought. 

The question suggests, though indirectly, that the 
signs of the Spirit’s presence are sadly absent in many 
professing Christians. Paul asked it in wonder. If he 
came into modern churches, he would have to ask it 


vs.1-12] TWO FRUITFUL YEARS 171 


once more. Possibly he looked for the visible tokens 
in powers of miracle-working and the like. But these 
were temporary accidents, and the permanent mani- 
festations are holiness, consciousness of sonship, God- 
directed longings, religious illumination, victory over 
the flesh. These things should be obvious in disciples. 
They will be, if the Spirit is not quenched. Unless 
they are, what sign of being Christians do we present? 

The answer startles. They had not heard whether 
the Holy Ghost had been given; for that is the true 
meaning of their reply. John had foretold the coming 
of One who should baptize with the fire of that divine 
Spirit. His disciples, therefore, could not be ignorant 
of the existence thereof; but they had never heard 
whether their Master's prophecy had been fulfilled. 
What a glimpse that gives us of the small publicity 
attained by the story of Jesus! 

Paul’s second question betrays even more astonish- 
ment than did his first. He had taken for granted that, 
as disciples, the men had been baptized; and his question 
implies that a pre-requisite of Christian baptism was 
the teaching which they said that they had not had, 
and that a consequence of it was the gift of the Spirit, 
which he saw that they did not possess. Of course 
Paul’s teaching is but summarised here. Its gist was 
that Jesus was the Messiah whom John had heralded, 
that John had himself taught that his mission was 
preliminary, and that therefore his true disciples must 
advance to faith in Christ. 

The teaching was welcomed, for these men were not 
of the sort who saw in Jesus a rival to John, as others 
of his disciples did. They became ‘disciples indeed, and 
then followed baptism, apparently not administered by 
Paul, and imposition of Paul’s hands. The Holy Spirit 


172 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ea. xrx. 


then came on them, as on the disciples on Pentecost, 
and ‘they spoke with tongues and prophesied.’ It was 
a repetition of that day, as a testimony that the gifts 
were not limited by time or place, but were the per- 
manent possession of believers, as truly in heathen 
Ephesus as in Jerusalem; and we miss the meaning 
of the event unless we add, as truly in Britain to-day 
asin any past. The fire lit on Pentecost has not died 
down into grey ashes. If we ‘believe, it will burn on 
our heads and, better, in our spirits. 

Much ingenuity has been expended in finding pro- 
found meanings in the number of ‘twelve’ here. The 
Apostles and their supernatural gifts, the patriarchs 
as founders of Israel, have been thought of as explain- 
ing the number, as if these men were founders of a 
new Israel, or Apostolate. But all that is trifling with 
the story, which gives no hint that the men were of 
any special importance, and it omits the fact that they 
were ‘about twelve, not precisely that number. Luke 
simply wishes us to learn that there was a group of 
them, but how many he does not exactly know. More 
important is it to notice that this is the last reference 
to John or his disciples in the New Testament. The 
narrator rejoices to point out that some at least of 
these were led onwards into full faith. 

The other part of the section presents mainly the 
familiar features of Apostolic ministration, the first 
appeal to the synagogue, the rejection of the message 
by it, and then the withdrawal of Paul and the Jewish 
disciples. The chief characteristics of the narrative 
are Paul's protracted stay in Ephesus, the establish- 
ment of a centre of public evangelising in the lecture 
hall of a Gentile teacher, the unhindered preaching of 
the Gospel, and the special miracles accompanying it. 


vs.1-12]} TWO FRUITFUL YEARS 173 


The importance of Ephesus as the eye and heart of 
proconsular Asia explains the lengthened stay. ‘A 
great door and effectual, said Paul, ‘is opened unto 
me’; and he was not the man to refrain from pushing 
in at it because ‘there are many adversaries. Rather 
opposition was part of his reason for persistence, as it 
should always be. 

There comes a point in the most patient labour, 
however, when it is best no longer to ‘cast pearls’ 
before those who ‘trample them under foot, and Paul 
set an example of wise withdrawal as well as of brave 
pertinacity, in leaving the synagogue when his remain- 
ing there only hardened disobedient hearts. Note that 
word disobedient. It teaches that the moral element 
in unbelief is resistance of the will. The two words 
are not synonyms, though they apply to the same 
state of mind. Rather the one lays bare the root of 
the other and declares its guilt. Unbelief comes from 
disobedience, and therefore is fit subject for punish- 
ment. Again observe that expression for Christianity, 
‘the Way, which oceurs several times in the Acts. 
The Gospel points the path for ustotread. Itis nota 
body of truth merely, but it is a guide for practice. 
Discipleship is manifested in conduct. This Gospel 
points the way through the wilderness to Zion and to 
rest. It is ‘the Way, the only path, ‘the Way ever- 
lasting.’ 

It was a bold step to gather the disciples in ‘the 
school of Tyrannus. He was probably a Greek 
professor of rhetoric or lecturer on philosophy, and 
Paul may have hired his hall, to the horror, no doubt, 
of the Rabbis. It was a complete breaking with the 
synagogue and a bold appeal to the heathen public. 
Ephesus must have been better governed than Philippi 


ras 


174 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cs. xr. 


and Lystra, and the Jewish element must have been 
relatively weaker, to allow of Paul’s going on preaching 
with so much publicity for two years. 

Note the flexibility of his methods, his willingness 
to use even a heathen teacher’s school for his work, 
and the continuous energy of the man. Not on 
Sabbath days only, but daily, he was at his post. The 
multitudes of visitors from all parts to the great city 
supplied a constant stream of listeners, for Ephesus 
was a centre for the whole country. We may learn 
from Paul to concentrate work in important centres, 
not to be squeamish about where we stand to preach 
the Gospel, and not to be afraid of making ourselves 
conspicuous. Paul's message hallows the school of 
Tyrannus; and the school of Tyrannus, where men 
have been accustomed to go for widely different 
teaching, is a good place for Paul to give forth his 
message in. 

The ‘special miracles’ which were wrought are very 
remarkable, and unlike the usual type of miracles. It 
does not appear that Paul himself sent the ‘handker- 
chiefs and aprons, which conveyed healing virtue, but 
that he simply permitted their use. The converts had 
faith to believe that such miracles would be wrought, 
and God honoured the faith. But note how carefully 
the narrative puts Paul's part in its right place. God 
’ ‘wrought’; Paul was only the channel. If the eager 
people, who carried away the garments, had super- 
stitiously fancied that there was virtue in Paul, and 
had not looked beyond him to God, it is implied that no 
miracles would have been wrought. But still the cast 
of these healings is anomalous, and only paralleled by 
the similar instances in Peter's case. 

The principle laid down by Peter (ch. iii. 12) is to be 


vs. 1-12] WOULD-BE EXORCISTS 175 


kept in view in the study of all the miracles in the 
Acts. It is Jesus Christ who works, and not His 
servants who heal by their ‘own power or holiness.’ 
Jesus can heal with or without material channels, but 
sometimes chooses to employ such vehicles as these, 
just as on earth He chose to anoint blind eyes with 
clay, and to send the man to wash it off at the pool. 
Sense-bound faith is not rejected, but is helped accord- 
ing to its need, that it may be strengthened and 
elevated. 


WOULD-BE EXORCISTS 


‘. . . Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?’—AortTs xix, 15. 


THESE exorcists had no personal union with Jesus. To 
them He was only ‘Jesus whom Paul preached.’ They 
spoke His name tentatively, as an experiment, and 
imitatively. To command ‘in the name of Jesus’ was 
an appeal to Jesus to glorify His name and exert His 
power, and so when the speaker had no real faith in 
the name or the power, there was no answer, because 
there was really no appeal. 

I. The only power which can cast out the evil spirits 
is the name of Jesus. 

That is a commonplace of Christian belief. But it 
is often held in a dangerously narrow way and leads to 
most unwise pitting of the Gospel against other modes 
of bettering and elevating men, instead of recognising 
them as allies. Earnest Christian workers are tempted 
to forget Jesus’ own word: ‘He that is not against us 
is for us. There is no need to disparage other agencies 
because we believe that it is the Gospel which is ‘the 
power of God unto salvation.’ Many of the popular 


abe 


176 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xrx. 


philanthropic movements of the day, many of its 
curbing and enlightening forces, many of its revolu- 
tionary social ideas, are really in their essence and 
historically in their origin, profoundly Christian, and 
are the application of the principles inherent in ‘the 
Name’ to the evils of society. No doubt many of 
their eager apostles are non-Christian or even anti- 
Christian, but though some of them have tried 
violently to pluck up the plant by the root from the 
soil in which it first flowered, much of that soil still 
adheres to it, and it will not live long if torn from its 
native ‘ habitat.’ 

It is not narrowness or hostility to non-Christian 
efforts to cast out the demons from humanity, but 
only the declaration of a truth which is taught by the 
consideration of what is the difference between all 
other such efforts and Christianity, and is confirmed 
by experience, if we maintain that, whatever good 
results may follow from these other influences, it is 
the powers lodged in the Name of Jesus, and these 
alone which can, radically and completely, conquer 
and eject the demons from a single soul, and emanci- 
pate society from their tyranny. 

For consider that the Gospel which proclaims Jesus 
as the Saviour is the only thing which deals with the 
deepest fact in our natures, the fact of sin; gives a 
personal Deliverer from its power; communicates a 
new life of which the very essence is righteousness, and 
which brings with it new motives, new impulses, and 
new powers. 

Contrast with this the inadequate diagnosis of the 
disease and the consequent imperfection of the remedy 
which:other physicians of the world’s sickness present. 
Most, of them only aim at repressing outward acts. 


v. 15] WOULD-BE EXORCISTS 177 


None of them touch more than a part of the whole 
dreadful circumference of the dark orb of evil. Law 
restrains actions. Ethics proclaims principles which 
it has no power to realise. It shows men a shining 
height, but leaves them lame and grovelling in the 
mire. Education casts out the demon of ignorance, 
and makes the demons whom it does not cast out more 
polite and perilous. It brings its own evils in its train. 
Every kind of crop has weeds which spring with it. 
The social and political changes, which are eagerly 
preached now, will do much; but one thing, which is 
the all-important thing, they will not do, they will not 
change the nature of the individuals who make up the 
community. And till that nature is changed any form 
of society will produce its own growth of evils. A 
Christless democracy will be as bad as, if not worse 
than, a Christless monarchy or aristocracy. If the 
bricks remain the same, it does not much matter into 
what shape you build them. 

These would-be exorcists but irritated the demons 
by their vain attempts at ejecting them, and it is some- 
times the case that efforts to cure social diseases only 
result in exacerbating them. If one hole ina Dutch 
dyke is stopped up, more pressure is thrown on another 
weak point and a leak will soon appear there. There 
is but one Name that casts a spell over all the ills that 
flesh is heir to. There is but one Saviour of society— 
Jesus who saves from sin through His death, and by 
participation in His life delivers men from that life of 
self which is the parent of all the evils from which 
society vainly strives to be delivered by any power 
but His. 

II. That Name must be spoken by believing men if 
it is to put forth its full power. 

VOL, II. M 





178 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xtx. 


These exorcists had no faith. All that they knew 
of Jesus was that He was the one ‘whom Paul 
preached.’ Even the name of Jesus is spoiled and is 
powerless on the lips of one who repeats it, parrot-like, 
because he has seen its power when it came flame-like 
from the fiery lips of some man of earnest convictions. 

In all regions, and especially in the matter of art or 
literature, imitators are poor creatures, and men are 
quick to detect the difference between the original and 
the copy. The copyists generally imitate the weak 
points, and seldom get nearer than the imitation of 
external and trivial peculiarities. It is more feasible 
to reproduce the ‘contortions of the Sibyl’ than to 
catch her ‘inspiration.’ 

This absence or feebleness of personal faith is the 
explanation of much failure in so-called Christian work. 
No doubt there may be other causes for the want of 
success, but after all allowance is made for these, it 
still remains true that the chief reason why the 
Gospel message is often proclaimed without casting 
out demons is that it is proclaimed with faltering 
faith, tentatively and without assured confidence in its 
power, or imitatively, with but little, if any, inward 
experience of the magic of its spell. The demons have 
ears quick to discriminate between Paul's fiery accents 
and the cold repetition of them. Incomparably the 
most powerful agency which any man can employ in 
producing conviction in others is the utterance of his 
own intense conviction. ‘If you wish me to weep, 
your own tears must flow,’ said the Roman poet. Other 
factors may powerfully aid the exorcising power of the 
word spoken by faith, and no wise man will disparage 
these, but they are powerless without faith and it is 
powerful without them. 


v. 15] WOULD-BE EXORCISTS 179 


Consider the effect of that personal faith on the 
speaker—in bringing all his force to bear on his 
words; in endowing him for a time with many of the 
subsidiary qualities which make our words winged and 
weighty; in lifting to a height of self-oblivion, which 
itself is magnetic. 

Consider its effect on the hearers—how it bows hearts 
as trees are bent before a rushing wind. 

Consider its effect in bringing into action God’s own 
power. Of the man, all aflame with Christian con- 
victions and speaking them with the confidence and 
urgency which become them and him, it may truly be 
said, ‘It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
Father that speaketh in you.’ 

Here then we have laid bare the secret of success 
and a cause of failure, in Christian enterprise. Here 
we see, as in a concrete example, the truth exemplified, 
which all who long for the emancipation of demon- 
ridden humanity would be wise to lay to heart, and 
thereby to be saved from much eager travelling ona 
road that leads nowhither, and much futile expenditure 
of effort and sympathy, and many disappointments. 
It is as true to-day as it was long ago in Ephesus, that 
the evil spirits ‘feel the Infant’s hand from far Judea’s 
land, and are forced to confess, ‘Jesus we know and 
Paul we know’; but to other would-be exorcists their 
answer is,‘ Who are ye?’ ‘Whena strong man armed 
keepeth his house, his goods are in peace. There is 
but ‘One stronger than he who can come upon him, 
and having overcome him, can take from him all his 
armour wherein he trusted and divide the spoils, and 
that is the Christ, at whose name, faithfully spoken, 
‘the devils fear and fly.’ 


THE FIGHT WITH WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS 


* After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed 
through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been 
there, I must also see Rome. 22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that 
ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for 
a season. 23. And the same time there arose no small stir about that way. 
24. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines 
for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen; 25. Whom he called 
together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by 
this craft we have our wealth. 26. Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at 
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned 
away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: 
27. So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that 
the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence 
should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth. 28. And when 
they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is 
Diana of the Ephesians. 29. And the whole city was filled with confusion: and 
having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in 
travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre. 30. And when Paul would 
have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not. 31. And certain 
of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he 
would not adventure himself into the theatre. 32. Some therefore cried one thing, 
and some another: for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not 
wherefore they were come together. 33. And they drew Alexander out of the 
multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the 
hand, and would have made his defence unto the people. 34. But when they knew 
that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, 
Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’—Aots xix. 21-34. 


PAuvL’s long residence in Ephesus indicates the impor- 
tance of the position. The great wealthy city was the 
best possible centre for evangelising all the province 
of Asia, and that was to a large extent effected during 
the Apostle’s stay there. But he had a wider scheme 
in his mind. His settled policy was always to fly at 
the head, as it were. The most populous cities were 
his favourite fields, and already his thoughts were 
travelling towards the civilised world’s capital, the 
centre of empire—Rome. A blow struck there would 
echo through the world. Paul had his plan, and God 
had His, and Paul's was not realised in the fashion he 
had meant, but it was realised in substance. He did 
not expect to enter Rome as a prisoner. God shaped 


the ends which Paul had only rough-hewn. 
180 


vs, 21-34] WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS 181 


The programme in verses 21 and 22 was modified by 
circumstances, as some people would say; Paul would 
have said, by God. The riot hastened his departure 
from Ephesus. He did go to Jerusalem, and he did 
see Rome, but the chain of events that drew him there 
seemed to him, at first sight, the thwarting, rather 
than the fulfilment, of his long-cherished hope. Well 
it is for us to carry all our schemes to God, and to 
leave them in His hands. 

The account of the riot is singularly vivid and lifelike. 
It reveals a new phase of antagonism to the Gospel, 
a kind of trades-union demonstration, quite unlike 
anything that has met us in the Acts. It gives a 
glimpse into the civic life of a great city, and shows 
demagogues and mob to be the same in Ephesus 
as in England. It has many points of interest for 
the commentator or scholar, and lessons for all. 
Luke tells the story with a certain dash of covert 
irony. 

We have, first, the protest of the shrine-makers’ guild 
or trades-union, got up by the skilful manipulation of 
Demetrius. He was evidently an important man in 
the trade, probably well-to-do. As his speech shows, 
he knew exactly how to hit the average mind. The 
small shrines which he and his fellow-craftsmen made 
were of various materials, from humble pottery to 
silver, and were intended for ‘votaries to dedicate 
in the temple, and represented the goddess Artemis 
sitting in a niche with her lions beside her. Making 
these was a flourishing industry, and must have 
employed a large number of men and much capital. 
Trade was beginning to be slack, and sales were falling 
off. No doubt there is exaggeration in Demetrius’s 
rhetoric, but the meeting of the craft would not have 


182 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xr. 


been held unless a perceptible effect had been produced 
by Paul’s preaching. Probably Demetrius and the 
rest were more frightened than hurt; but men are 
very quick to take alarm when their pockets are 
threatened. . 

The speech is a perfect example of how self-interest 
masquerades in the garb of pure concern for lofty 
objects, and yet betrays itself. The danger to ‘our 
craft’ comes first, and the danger to the ‘magnificence’ 
of the goddess second; but the precedence given to 
the trade is salved over by a ‘not only,’ which tries to 
make the religious motive the chief. No doubt Deme- 
trius was a devout worshipper of Artemis, and thought 
himself influenced by high motives in stirring up the 
craft. It is natural to be devout or moral or patriotic 
when it pays to be so. One would not expect a shrine- 
maker to be easily accessible to the conviction that 
‘they be no gods which are made with hands,’ 

Such admixture of zeal for some great cause, with a 
shrewd eye to profit, is very common, and may deceive 
us if we are not always watchful. Jehu bragged about 
his ‘zeal for the Lord’ when it urged him to secure 
himself on the throne by murder; and he may have 
been quite honest in thinking that the impulse was 
pure, when it was really mingled. How many foremost 
men in public life everywhere pose as pure patriots, 
consumed with zeal for national progress, righteous- 
ness, etc., when all the while they are chiefly concerned 
about some private bit of log-rolling of their own! 
How often in churches there are men professing to be 
eager for the glory of God, who are, perhaps half- 
unconsciously, using it as a stalking-horse, behind 
which they may shoot game for their own larder! 
A drop of quicksilver oxidises and dims as soon as 


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vs. 21-34] WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS 183 


exposed to the air. The purest motives get a scum 
on them quickly unless we constantly keep them clear 
by communion with God. 

Demetrius may teach us another lesson. His opposi- 
tion to Paul was based on the plain fact that, if Paul’s 
teaching prevailed, no more shrines would be wanted. 
That was a new ground of opposition to the Gospel, 
resembled only by the motive for the action of the 
owners of the slave girl at Philippi; but it is a per- 
ennial source of antagonism to it. In our cities 
especially there are many trades which would be 
wiped out if Christ’s laws of life were universally 
adopted. So all the purveyors of commodities and 
pleasures which the Gospel forbids a Christian man to 
use are arrayed against it. We have to make up our 
minds to face and fight them. A liquor-seller, for 
instance, is not likely to look complacently on a 
religion which would bring his ‘trade into disrepute’; 
and there are other occupations which would be gone if 
Christ were King, and which therefore, by the instinct 
of self-preservation, are set against the Gospel, unless, 
so to speak, its teeth are drawn. 

According to one reading, the shouts of the crafts- 
men which told that Demetrius had touched them in 
the tenderest part, their pockets, was an invocation, 
‘Great Diana!’ not a profession of faith; and we have 
a more lively picture of an excited crowd if we adopt 
the alteration. It is easy to get a mob to yell out a 
watchword, whether religious or political; and the 
less they understand it, the louder are they likely to 
roar. In Athanasius’ days the rabble of Constantinople 
made the city ring with cries, degrading the subtlest 
questions as to the Trinity, and examples of the same 
sort have not been wanting nearer home. It is 





184 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xrx. 


criminal to bring such incompetent judges into 
religious or political or social questions, it is cowardly 
to be influenced by them. ‘The voice of the people’ 
is not always ‘the voice of God. It is better to ‘be 
in the right with two or three’ than to swell the howl 
of Diana’s worshippers. 

II. A various reading of verse 28 gives an additional 
particular, which is of course implied in the received 
text, but makes the narrative more complete and vivid 
if inserted. It adds that the craftsmen rushed ‘into 
the street, and there raised their wild ery, which 
naturally ‘filled’ the city with confusion. So the 
howling mob, growing larger and more excited every 
minute, swept through Ephesus, and made for the 
theatre, the common place of assembly. 

On their road they seem to have come across two of 
Paul’s companions, whom they dragged with them. 
What they meant to do with the two they had pro- 
bably not asked themselves. A mob has no plans, and 
its most savage acts are unpremeditated. Passion let 
loose is almost sure to end in bloodshed, and the lives 
of Gaius and Aristarchus hung by a thread. A gust of 
fury storming over the mob, and a hundred hands 
might have torn them to atoms, and no man have 
thought himself their murderer. 

What a noble contrast to the raging crowd the silent 
submission, no doubt accompanied by trustful looks 
to Heaven and unspoken prayers, presents! And how 
grandly Paul comes out! He had not been found, 
probably had not been sought for, by the rioters, 
whose rage was too blind to search for him, but his 
brave soul could not bear to leave his friends in peril 
and not plant himself by their sides. So he ‘was 
minded to enter in unto the people,’ well knowing that 


vs. 21-34] WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS 185 


there he had to face more ferocious ‘ wild beasts’ than 
if a cageful of lions had been loosed on him. Faith in 
God and fellowship with Christ lift a soul above fear 
of death. The noblest kind of courage is not that born 
of flesh or temperament, or of the madness of battle, 
but that which springs from calm trust in and absolute 
surrender to Christ. 

Not only did the disciples restrain Paul as feeling 
that if the shepherd were smitten the sheep would be 
scattered, but interested friends started up in an 
unlikely quarter. The ‘chief of Asia’ or Asiarchs, who 
sent to dissuade him, ‘ were the heads of the imperial 
political-religious organisation of the province, in the 
worship of “Rome and the emperors”; and their 
friendly attitude is a proof both that the spirit of the 
imperial policy was not as yet hostile to the new 
teaching, and that the educated classes did not share 
the hostility of the superstitious vulgar’ (Ramsay, 
St. Paul the Traveller, p. 281). It is probable that, 
in that time of crumbling faith and religious unrest, 
the people who knew most about the inside of the 
established worship believed in it least, and in their 
hearts agreed with Paul that ‘they be no gods which 
are made with hands.’ 

So we have in these verses the central picture of 
calm Christian faith and patient courage, contrasted 
on the one hand with the ferocity and excitement of 
heathen fanatical devotees, and on the other with the 
prudent regard to their own safety of the Asiarchs, 
who had no such faith in Diana as to lead them to 
joining the rioters, nor such faith in Paul’s message 
as to lead them to oppose the tumult, or to stand by 
his side, but contented themselves with sending to 
warn him. Who can doubt that the courage of the 


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186 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cen. xrx. 


Christians is infinitely nobler than the fury of the 
mob or the cowardice of the Asiarchs, kindly as they 
were? If they were his friends, why did they not 
do something to shield him? ‘A plague on such 
backing !’ 

III. The scene in the theatre, to which Luke returns 
in verse 32, is described with a touch of scorn for the 
crowd, who mostly knew not what had brought them 
together. One section of it kept characteristically cool 
and sharp-eyed for their own advantage. A number 
of Jews had mingled in it, probably intending to fan 
the flame against the Christians, if they could do it 
safely. As in so many other cases in Acts, common 
hatred brought Jew and Gentile together, each pocket- 
ing for the time his disgust with the other. The Jews 
saw their opportunity. Half a dozen cool heads, who 
know what they want, can often sway a mob as they 
will. Alexander, whom they ‘put forward, was no 
doubt going to make a speech disclaiming for the 
Jews settled in Ephesus any connection with the 
obnoxious Paul. We may be very sure that his 
‘defence’ was of the former, not of the latter. 

But the rioters were in no mood to listen to fine dis- 
tinctions among the members of a race which they 
hated so heartily. Paul was a Jew, and this man was 
a Jew; that was enough. So the roar went up again 
to Great Diana, and for two long hours the erowd 
surged and shouted themselves hoarse, Gaius and 
Aristarchus standing silent all the while and expecting 
every moment to be their last. The scene reminds one 
of Baal’s priests shrieking to him on Carmel. It is but 
too true a representation of the wild orgies which 
stand for worship in all heathen religions. It is but 
too lively an example of what must always happen 


vs. 21-34] PARTING COUNSELS 187 


when excited crowds are ignorantly stirred by appeals 
to prejudice or self-interest. 

The more democratic the form of government under 
which we live, the more needful is it to distinguish the 
voice of the people from the voice of the mob, and 
to beware of exciting, or being governed by, clamour 
however loud and long. 


PARTING COUNSELS 


‘And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the 
things that shall befall me there: 23. Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in 
every city, saying that bonds and aillictions abide me. 24. But none of these 
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish 
my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to 
testify the gospel of the grace of God. 25. And now, behold, I know that ye all, 
among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no 
more. 26. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that Iam pure from the blood 
ofallmen. 27. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. 
28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the 
Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath 
purchased with His own blood. 29. For I know this, that after my departing shall 
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30. Alsoof your own 
selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after 
them. 31. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I 
ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 32. And now, brethren, 
I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you 
up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. 33. I 
have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. 34. Yea, ye yourselves know, 
that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were 
with me. 35. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to 
support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, 
It is more blessed to give than to receive.’— ACTS xx, 22-35. 


THis parting address to the Ephesian elders is perfect 
in simplicity, pathos, and dignity. Love without weak- 
ness and fervent yet restrained self-devotion throb in 
every line. It is personal without egotism, and soars 
without effort. It is ‘Pauline’ through and through, 
and if Luke or some unknown second-century Christian 
made it, the world has lost the name of a great genius. 
In reading it, we have to remember the Apostle’s long 
stay in Ephesus, and his firm conviction that he was 





188 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


parting for ever from those over whom he had so long 
watched, and so long loved, as well as guided. Parting 
words should be tender and solemn, and Ceri are both 
in the highest degree. 

The prominence given to personal references is very 
marked and equally natural. The whole address down 
to verse 27 inclusive is of that nature, and the same 
theme recurs in verse 31, is caught up again in verse 
33, and continues thence to the end. That abundance 
of allusions to himself is characteristic of the Apostle, 
even in his letters; much more is it to be looked for 
in such an outpouring of his heart to trusted friends, 
seen for the last time. Few religious teachers have 
ever talked so much of themselves as Paul did, and 
yet been as free as he is from taint of display or 
self-absorption. 

The personal references in verses 22 to 27 turn on 
two points—his heroic attitude in prospect of trials 
and possible martyrdom, and his solemn washing his 
hands of all responsibility for ‘the blood’ of those to 
whom he had declared all the counsel of God. He 
looks back, and his conscience witnesses that he has 
discharged his ministry ; he looks forward, and is ready 
for all that may confront him in still discharging it, 
even to the bloody end. 

Nothing tries a man’s mettle more than impending 
evil which is equally certain and undefined. Add that 
the moment of the sword’s falling is unknown, and 
you have a combination which might shake the firmest 
nerves. Such a combination fronted Paul now. He 
told the elders, what we do not otherwise know, that 
at every halting-place since setting his face towards 
Jerusalem he had been 1aet by the same prophetic 
warnings of ‘bonds and afflictions’ waiting for him. 


vs. 22-35] PARTING COUNSELS 189 


The warnings were vague, and so the more impressive. 
Fear has a vivid imagination, and anticipates the 
worst. 

Paul was not afraid, but he would not have been 
human if he had not recognised the short distance for 
him between a prison and a scaffold. But the prospect 
did not turn hima hairsbreadth from hiscourse. True, 
he was ‘bound in the spirit, which may suggest that 
he was not so much going joyfully as impelled by a 
constraint felt to be irresistible. But whatever his 
feelings, his will was iron, and he went calmly forward 
on the road, though he knew that behind some turn 
of it lay in wait, like beasts of prey, dangers of unknown 
kinds. 

And what nerved him thus to front death itself 
without a quiver? The supreme determination to do 
what Jesus had given him to do. He knew that his 
Lord had set him a task, and the one thing needful 
was to accomplish that. We have no such obstacles 
in our course as Paul had in his, but the same spirit 
must mark us if we are to do our work. Consciousness 
of a mission, fixed determination to carry it out, and 
consequent contempt of hindrances, belong to all noble 
lives, and especially to true Christian ones. Perils 
and hardships and possible evils should have no more 
power to divert us from the path which Christ marks 
for us than storms or tossing of the ship have to deflect 
the needle from pointing north. 

It is easy to talk heroically when no foes are in 
sight; but Paul was looking dangers in the eyes, and 
felt their breath on his cheeks when he spoke. His 
longing was to ‘fulfil his course. ‘With joy’ is a 
weakening addition. It was not ‘joy,’ but the dis- 
charge of duty, which seemed to him infinitely desir- 


ia | 


190 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


able. What was aspiration at Miletus became fact 
when, in his last Epistle, he wrote, ‘I have finished my 
course.’ 

In verses 25 to 27 the Apostle looks back as well as 
forward. His anticipation that he was parting for 
ever from the Ephesian elders was probably mistaken, 
but it naturally leads him to think of the long ministry 
among them which was now, as he believed, closed. 
And his retrospect was very different from what most 
of us, who are teachers, feel that ours must be. Itisa 
solemn thought that if we let either cowardice or love 
of ease and the good opinion of men hold us back from 
speaking out all that we know of God’s truth, our hands 
are reddened with the blood of souls. 

We are all apt to get into grooves of favourite 
thoughts, and to teach but part of the whole Gospel. 
If we do not seek to widen our minds to take in, and 
our utterances to give forth, all the will of God as 
seen by us, our limitations and repetitions will repel 
some from the truth, who might have been won by a 
completer presentation of it, and their blood will be 
required at our hands. None of us can reach to the 
apprehension, in its full extent and due proportion 
of its parts, of that great gospel; but we may at least 
seek to come nearer the ideal completeness of a teacher, 
and try to remember that we are ‘ pure from the blood 
of all men, only when we have not ‘shrunk from 
declaring all God’s counsel. We are not required to 
know it completely, but we are required not to shrink 
from declaring it as far as we know it. 

Paul’s purpose in this retrospect was not only to 
vindicate himself, but to suggest to the elders their 
duty. Therefore he passes immediately to exhorta- 
tion to them, and a forecast of the future of the 





— 
0 


vs. 22-35] PARTING COUNSELS 191 


Ephesian Church. ‘Take heed to yourselves. The 
care of one’s own soul comes first. He will be of little 
use to the Church whose own personal religion is not 
kept warm and deep. All preachers and teachers and 
men who influence their fellows need to lay to heart 
this exhortation, especially in these days when calls to 
outward service are so multiplied. The neglect of it 
undermines all real usefulness, and is a worm gnawing 
at the roots of the vines. 

We note also the condensed weightiness of the 
following exhortation, in which solemn reasons are 
suggested for obeying it. The divine appointment to 
office, the inclusion of the ‘bishops’ in the flock, the 
divine ownership of the flock, and the cost of its 
purchase, are all focussed on the one point, ‘Take heed 
to all the flock.’ Of course a comparison with verse 17 
shows that elder and bishop were two designations for 
one officer; but the question of the primitive organisa- 
tion of church offices, important as it is, is less important 
than the great thoughts as to the relation of the Church 
to God, and as to the dear price at which men have 
been won to be truly His. 

We note the reading in the Revised Version of v. 28 
(margin), ‘the flock of the Lord,’ but do not discuss it. 
The chief thought of the verse is that the Church is 
God’s flock, and that the death of Jesus has bought 
it for His, and that negligent under-shepherds are 
therefore guilty of grievous sin. 

The Apostle had premonitions of the future for the 
Church as well as for himself, and the horizons were 
dark in both outlooks. He foresaw evils from two 
quarters, for ‘wolves’ would come from without, and 
perverse teachers would arise within, drawing the 
disciples after them and away from the Lord. The 


7 vy 


192 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx xx. 


simile of wolves may be an echo of Christ’s warning 
in Matthew vii. 15. How sadly Paul’s anticipations 
were fulfilled the Epistle to the Church in Ephesus 
(Revelation ii.) shows too clearly. Unslumbering alert- 
ness, as of a sentry in front of the enemy, is needed 
if the slinking onset of the wolf is to be beaten back. 
Paul points to his own example, and that in no vain- 
glorious spirit, but to stimulate and also to show how 
watchfulness is to be carried out. It must be unceas- 
ing, patient, tenderly solicitous, and grieving over the 
falls of others as over personal calamities. If there 
were more such ‘shepherds, there would be fewer 
stray sheep. 

Anxious forebodings and earnest exhortations natur- 
ally end in turning to God and invoking His protecting 
care. The Apostle’s heart runs over in his last words 
(vs. 32-35). He falls back for himself, in the prospect 
of having to cease his care of the Church, on the 
thought that a better Guide will not leave it, and he 
would comfort the elders as well as himself by the 
remembrance of God’s power to keep them. So Jacob, 
dying, said, ‘I die, but God shall be with you.’ So 
Moses, dying, said, ‘The Lord hath said unto me, thou 
shalt not go over this Jordan. The Lord thy God, 
He will go before thee.’ Not even Paul is indispens- 
able. The under-shepherds die, the Shepherd lives, and 
watches against wolves and dangers. Paul had laid 
the foundation, and the edifice would not stand un- 
finished, like some half-reared palace begun by a now 
dead king. The growth of the Church and of its indi- 
vidual members is sure. It is wrought by God. 

His instrument is ‘the word of His grace. Therefore 
if we would grow, we must use that word. Christian 
progress is no more possible, if the word of God is not 


vs, 22-35) PARTING COUNSELS 198 


our food, than is an infant’s growth if it refuses milk. 
That building up or growth or advance (for all three 
metaphors are used, and mean the same thing) has but 
one natural end, the entrance of each redeemed soul 
into its own allotment in the true land of promise, 
the inheritance of those who are sanctified. If we faith- 
fully use that word which tells of and brings God’s 
grace, that we may grow thereby, He will bring us at 
last to dwell among those who here have growingly 
been made saints. He is able to do these things. It 
is for us to yield to His power, and to observe the 
conditions on which it will work on us. 

Even at the close Paul cannot refrain from personal 
references. He points to his example of absolute dis- 
interestedness, and with a dramatic gesture holds out 
‘these hands’ to show how they are hardened by work. 
Such a warning against doing God’s work for money 
would not have been his last word, at a time when all 
hearts were strung up to the highest pitch, unless the 
danger had been very real. And it is very real to-day. 
If once the suspicion of being influenced by greed of 
gain attaches to a Christian worker, his power ebbs 
away, and his words lose weight and impetus. 

It is that danger which Paul is thinking of when 
he tells the elders that by ‘labouring’ they ‘ought to 
support the weak’; for by weak he means not the 
poor, but those imperfect disciples who might be re- 
pelled or made to stumble by the sight of greed in an 
elder. Shepherds who obviously cared more for wool 
than for the sheep have done as much harm as ‘ grievous 
wolves.’ 

Paul quotes an else unrecorded saying of Christ’s 
which, like a sovereign’s seal, confirms the subject’s 
words. It gathers into a sentence the very essence 

VOL. II. N 


194 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xx, 


of Christian morality. It reveals the inmost secret 
of the blessedness of the giving God. It is foolishness 
and paradox to the self-centred life of nature. It is 
blessedly true in the experience of all who, having 
received the ‘unspeakable gift, have thereby been 
enfranchised into the loftier life in which self is dead, 
and to which it is delight, kindred with God’s own 
blessedness, to impart. 


A FULFILLED ASPIRATION 


‘So that I might finish my course. .. .’—AcTs xx. 24, 
‘TI have finished my course. . . .’—2 TIM. iv. 7. 


I po not suppose that Paul in prison, and within sight 
of martyrdom, remembered his words at Ephesus. But 
the fact that what was aspiration whilst he was in the 
very thick of his difficulties came to be calm retrospect 
at the close is to me very beautiful and significant. 
‘So that I may finish my course, said he wistfully; 
whilst before him there lay dangers clearly discerned 
and others that had all the more power over the imagi- 
nation because they were but dimly discerned—‘ Not 
knowing the things that shall befall me there,’ said he, 
but knowing this, that ‘bonds and afflictions abide me.’ 
When a man knows exactly what he has to be afraid 
of he can face it. When he knows a little corner of it, 
and also knows that there is a great stretch behind 
that is unknown; that is a state of things that tries his 
mettle. Many a man will march up to a battery with- 
out a tremor who would not face a hole where a 
snake lay. And so Paul’s ignorance, as well as Paul's 
knowledge, made ityvery hard for him to say ‘None 
of these things move me’ if only ‘I might finish my 
course.’ 





v.24) A FULFILLED ASPIRATION 195 


Now there are in these two passages, thus put 
together, three points that I touch for a moment. 
These are, What Paul thought that life chiefly was; 
what Paul aimed at; and what Paul won thereby. 

I. What he thought that life chiefly was. 

‘That I may finish my course.’ Now ‘course,’ in our 
modern English, is far too feeble a word to express the 
Apostle’s idea here. It has come to mean with us a 
quiet sequence or a succession of actions which, taken 
together, complete a career; but in its original force 
the English word ‘course,’ and still more the Greek, of 
which it is a translation, contain a great deal more 
than that. If we were to read ‘race, we should get 
nearer to at least one side of the Apostle’s thought. 
This was the image under which life presented itself to 
him, as it does to every man that does anything in the 
world worth doing, whether he be Christian or not— 
as being not a place for enjoyment, for selfish pursuits, 
making money, building family, satisfying love, seeking 
pleasure, or the like; but mainly as being an appointed 
field for a succession of efforts, all in one direction, and 
leading progressively toanend. In that image of life 
as a race, threadbare as it is, there are several grave 
considerations involved, which it will contribute to the 
nobleness of our own lives to keep steadily in view. 

To begin with, the metaphor regards life as a track 
or path marked out and to be kept to by us. Paul 
thought of his life as a racecourse, traced for him by 
God, and from which it would be perilous and rebellious 
to diverge. The consciousness of definite duties loomed 
larger than anything else before him. His first waking 
thought was, ‘ What is God’s will for me to-day? What 
stage of the course have I to pass over to-day?’ Each 
moment brought to him an appointed task which at 





196 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xx. 


all hazards he must do. And this elevating, humbling, 
and bracing ever-present sense of responsibility, not 
merely to circumstances, but to God, is an indispens- 
able part of any life worth the living, and of any on 
which a man will ever dare to look back. 

‘My course. O brethren! if we carried with us, 
always present, that solemn, severe sense of all-per- 
vading duty and of obligation laid upon us to pursue 
faithfully the path that is appointed us, there would 
be less waste, less selfishness, less to regret, and less 
that weakens and defiles, in the lives of us all. And 
blessed be His name! however trivial be our tasks, 
however narrow our spheres, however secular and 
commonplace our businesses or trades, we may write 
upon them, as on all sorts of lives, except weak and 
selfish ones, this inscription, ‘ Holiness to the Lord.’ 

The broad arrow stamped on Crown property gives 
a certain dignity to whatever bears it, and whatever 
small duty has the name of God written across it is 
thereby ennobled. If our days are to be full-fraught 
with the serenity and purity which it is possible for 
them to attain, and if we ourselves are to put forth all 
our powers and make the most of ourselves, we must 
cultivate the continual sense that life is a course—a 
series of definite duties marked out for us by God. 

Again, the image suggests the strenuous efforts needed 
for discharge of our appointed tasks. The Apostle, 
like all men of imaginative and sensitive nature, was 
accustomed to speak in metaphors, which expressed 
his fervid convictions more adequately than more 
abstract expressions would have done. That vigorous 
figure of a ‘course’ speaks more strongly of the stress 
of continual effort than many words. It speaks of the 
straining muscles, and the intense concentration, and 


v.24) A FULFILLED ASPIRATION 197 


the forward-flung body of the runner in the arena. 
Paul says in effect, ‘I, for my part, live at high pressure. 
I get the most that I can out of myself. Ido the very 
best that isin me.’ And that is a pattern for us. 

There is nothing to be done unless we are contented 
to live on the stretch. Easygoing lives are always 
contemptible lives. A man who never does anything 
except what he can do easily never comes to do any- 
thing greater than what he began with, and never does 
anything worth doing at all. Effort is the law of life 
in all departments, as we all of us know and practise 
in regard to our daily business. But what a strange 
thing it is that we seem to think that our Christian 
characters can be formed and perfected upon other 
conditions, and in other fashions, than those by which 
men make their daily bread or their worldly fortunes! 

The direction which effort takes is different in 
these two regions. The necessity for concentration 
and vigorous putting into operation of every faculty is 
far more imperative in the Christian course than in 
any other form of life. 

I believe most earnestly that we grow Christlike, not 
by effort only, but by faith. But I believe that there 
is no faith without effort, and that the growth which 
comes from faith will not be appropriated and made 
ours without it. And sol preach, without in the least 
degree feeling that it impinges upon the great central 
truth that we are cleansed and perfected by the 
power of God working upon us, the sister truth that 
we must ‘work out our own salvation with fear and 
trembling.’ 

Brethren, unless we are prepared for the dust and 
heat of the race, we had better not start upon the 
course. Christian men have an appointed task, and to 





198 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xx. 


do it will take all the effort that they can put forth, 
and will assuredly demand continuous concentration 
and the summoning of every faculty to its utmost 
energy. 

Still further, there is another idea that lies in the 
emblem, and that is that the appointed task which 
thus demands the whole man in vigorous exercise ought 
in fact to be, and in its nature is, progressive. Is the 
Christianity of the average church member and profes- 
sing Christian a continuous advance? Is to-day better 
than yesterday? Are former attainments continu- 
ally being left behind? Does it not seem the bitterest 
irony to talk about the usual life of a Christian as 
a course? Did you ever see a squad of raw recruits 
being drilled in the barrack-yard? The first thing 
the sergeants do is to teach them the ‘goose-step,’ 
which consists in lifting up one foot and then the 
other, ad infinitum, and yet always keeping on the 
same bit of ground. That is the kind of ‘course’ which 
hosts of so-called Christians content themselves with 
running—a vast deal of apparent exercise and no 
advance. They are just at the same spot at which 
they stood five, ten, or twenty years ago; not a bit 
wiser, more like Christ, less like the devil and the 
world; having gained no more mastery over their 
characteristic evils; falling into precisely the same 
faults of temper and conduct as they used to do in the 
far-away past. By what right can they talk of running 
the Christian race? Progress is essential to real 
Christian life. 

II. Turn now to another thought here, and consider 
what Paul aimed at. 

it is a very easy thing for a man to say, ‘I take the 
discharge of my duty, given to me by Jesus Christ, as 


v.24] A FULFILLED ASPIRATION 199 


my great purpose in life, when there is nothing in the 
way to prevent him from carrying out that purpose. 
But it is a very different thing when, as was the case 
with Paul, there lie before him the certainties of afflic- 
tion and bonds, and the possibilities which very soon 
consolidated themselves into certainties, of a bloody 
death and that swiftly. To say then, without a 
quickened pulse or a tremor in the eyelid, or a quiver 
in the voice, or a falter in the resolution, to say then, 
‘none of these things move me, if only I may do what 
I was set to do’—that is to be in Christ indeed; and 
that is the only thing worth living for. 

Look how beautifully we see in operation in these 
heartfelt and few words of the Apostle the power that 
there is in an absolute devotion to God-enjoined duty, 
to give a man ‘a solemn scorn of ills, and to lift him 
high above everything that would bar or hinder his 
path. Isit not bracing to see any one actuated by such 
motives as these? And why should they not be motives 
for usall? The one thing worth our making our aim 
in life is to accomplish our course. 

Now notice that the word in the original here, 
‘finish, does not merely mean ‘end, which would bea 
very poor thing. Time will do that for us all. It will 
end our course. But an ended course may yet be an 
unfinished course. And the meaning that the Apostle 
attaches to the word in both of our texts is not merely 
to scramble through anyhow, so as to get to the last 
of it; but to complete, accomplish the course, or, to put 
away the metaphor, to do all that it was meant by God 
that he should do. 

Now some very early transcriber of the Acts of the 
Apostles mistook the Apostle’s meaning, and thought 
that he only said that he desired to end his career; 





200 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


and so, with the best intentions in the world, he 
inserted, probably on the margin, what he thought 
was a necessary addition—that unfortunate ‘with joy,’ 
which appears in our Authorised Version, but has no 
place in the true text. If we put it in we necessarily 
limit the meaning of the word ‘finish’ to that low, 
superficial sense which I have already dismissed. If we 
leave it out we get a far nobler thought. Paul was 
not thinking about the joy at the end. What he 
wanted was to do his work, all of it, right through to 
the very last. He knew there would be joy, but he 
does not speak about it. What he wanted, as all faith- 
ful men do, was to do the work, and let the joy take 
care of itself. 

And so for all of us, the true anzsthetiec or ‘ pain- 
killer’ is that all-dominant sense of obligation and duty 
which lays hold upon us, and grips us, and makes us, 
not exactly indifferent to, but very partially conscious 
of, the sorrows or the hindrances or the pains that 
may come in our. way. You cannot stop an express 
train by stretching a rope across the line, nor stay 
the flow of a river with a barrier of straw. And if a 
man has once yielded himself fully to that great con- 
ception of God’s will driving him on through life, and 
prescribing his path for him, it is neither in sorrow 
nor in joy to arrest his course. They may roll all the 
golden apples out of the garden of the Hesperides in 
his path, and he will not stop to pick one of them up; 
or Satan may block it with his fiercest flames, and the 
man will go into them, saying, ‘When I pass through 
the fires He will be with me.’ 

III. Lastly, what Paul won thereby. 

‘That I may finish my course ... I have finished my 
course’; in the same lofty meaning, not merely ended, 


v.24) A FULFILLED ASPIRATION 201 


though that was true, but ‘completed, accomplished, 
perfected.’ 

Now some hyper-sensitive people have thought that 
it was very strange that the Apostle, who was always 
preaching the imperfection of all human obedience 
and service, should, at the end of his life, indulge in 
such a piece of what they fancy was self-complacent 
retrospect as to say ‘I have kept the faith; I have 
fought a good fight; I have finished my course.’ 
But it was by no means complacent self-righteousness. 
Of course he did not mean that he looked back upon 
a career free from faults and flecks and stains. No. 
There is only one pair of human lips that ever could 
say, in the full significance of the word, ‘It is finished! 
... L have completed the work which Thou gavest Me 
to do. Jesus Christ’s retrospect of a stainless career, 
without defect or discordance at any point from the 
divine ideal, is not repeated in any of His servants’ 
experiences. But, on the other hand, if a man in the 
middle of his difficulties and his conflict pulls himself 
habitually together and says to himself, ‘Nothing 
shall move me, so that I may complete this bit of my 
course, depend upon it, his effort, his believing effort, 
will not be in vain; and at the last he will be able to 
look back on a career which, though stained with many 
imperfections, and marred with many failures, yet on 
the whole has realised the divine purpose, though not 
with absolute completeness, at least sufficiently to 
enable the faithful servant to feel that all his struggle 
has not been in vain. 

Brethren, no one else can. And oh! how different 
the two ‘courses’ of the godly man and the worldling 
look, in their relative importance, when seen from this 
side, as we are advancing towards them, and from the 





202 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


other as we look back upon them! Pleasures, escape 


from pains, ease, comfort, popularity, quiet lives—all © 


these things seem very attractive; and God’s will often 
seems very hard and very repulsive, when we are 
advancing towards some unwelcome duty. But when 
we get beyond it and look back, the two careers have 
changed their characters; and all the joys that could be 
bought at the price of the smallest neglected duty or 
the smallest perpetrated sin, dwindle and dwindle and 
dwindle, and the light is out of them, and they show 
for what they are—nothings, gilded nothings, painted 
emptinesses, lies varnished over. And on the other 
hand, to do right, to discharge the smallest duty, to 
recognise God’s will, and with faithful effort to seek to 
do it in dependence upon Him, that towers and towers 
and towers, and there seems to be, as there really is, 
nothing else worth living for. : 

So let us live with the continual remembrance in our 
minds that all which we do has to be passed in review 
by us once more, from another standpoint, and with 
another illumination falling upon it. And be sure of 
this, that the one thing worth looking back upon, and 
possible to be looked back upon with peace and quiet- 
ness, is the humble, faithful, continual discharge of our 
appointed tasks for the dear Lord’s sake. If you and 
I, whilst work and troubles last, do truly say, ‘None 
of these things move me, so that I might finish my 
course,’ we too, with all our weaknesses, may be able 
to say at the last, ‘Thanks be to God! I have finished 
my course.’ 


PARTING WORDS! 


* And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.... 
—ACTS xx. 32, 


I may be pardoned if my remarks now should assume 
somewhat of a more personal character than is my 
wont. I desire to speak mainly to my own friends, 
the members of my own congregation; and other 
friends who have come to give me a parting ‘God- — 
speed’ will forgive me if my observations have a more 
special bearing on those with whom I am more 
immediately connected. 

The Apostle whose words I have taken for my text 
was leaving, as he supposed, for the last time, the 
representatives of the Church in Ephesus, to whom he 
had been painting in very sombre colours the dangers 
of the future and his own forebodings and warnings. 
Exhortations, prophecies of evil, expressions of anxious 
solicitude, motions of Christian affection, all culminate 
in this parting utterance. High above them all rises 
the thought of the present God, and of the mighty 
word which in itself, in the absence of all human 
teachers, had power to ‘build them up,‘and to give 
them an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified.’ 

If we think of that Church in Ephesus, this brave con- 
fidence of the Apostle’s becomes yet more remarkable. 
They were set in the midst of a focus of heathen super- 
stition, from which they themselves had only recently 
been rescued. Their knowledge was little, they had no’ 
Apostolic teacher to be present with them; they were 
left alone there to battle with the evils of that corrupt 
society in which they dwelt. And yet Paul leaves 
them—‘sheep in the midst of wolves, with a very 
imperfect Christianity, with no Bible, with no teachers 
—in the sure confidence that no harm will come to 


1 Preached prior to a long absence in Australia. 
208 





204 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ce xx. 


them, because God is with them, and the ‘ word of His 
grace’ is enough. 

And that is the feeling, dear brethren, with which I 
now look you in the face for the last time for a little 
while. I desire that you andI should together share 
the conviction that each of us is safe because God and 
the ‘word of His grace’ will go and remain with us. 

I. So then, first of all, let me point you to the one 
source of security and enlightenment for the Church 
and for the individual. 

Weare not to separate between God and the ‘word 
of His grace, but rather to suppose that the way by 
which the Apostle conceived of God as working for the 
blessing and the guardianship of that little community 
in Ephesus was mainly, though not exclusively, through 
that which he here designates ‘the word of His grace.’ 

‘Weare not to forget the ever-abiding presence of the 
indwelling Spirit who guards and keeps the life of the 
individual and of the community. But what isinthe | 
Apostle’s mind here is the objective revelation, the 
actual spoken word (not yet written) which had its 
origin in God’s condescending love, and had for its con- 
tents, mainly, the setting forth of that love. Or to put 
it into other words, the revelation of the grace of God 
in Jesus Christ, with all the great truths that cluster 
round and are evolved from it, is the all-sufficient 
source of enlightenment and security for individuals 
and for Churches. And whosoever will rightly use and 
faithfully keep that great word, no evil shall befall 
him, nor shall he ever make shipwreck of the faith. It 
is ‘able to build you up,’ says Paul. In God's Gospel, 
in the truth concerning Jesus Christ the divine 
Redeemer, in the principles that flow from that Cross 
and Passion, and that risen life and that ascension 


v. 32] PARTING WORDS 205 


to God, there is all that men need, all that they want 
for life, all that they want for godliness. The basis of 
their creed, the sufficient guide for their conduct, the 
formative powers that will shape into beauty and 
nobleness their characters, all lie in the germ in this 
message, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself. Whoever keeps that in mind and memory, 
ruminates upon it till it becomes the nourishment of his 
soul, meditates on it till the precepts and the promises 
and the principles that are enwrapped in it unfold 
themselves before Him, needs none other guide for life, 
none other solace in sorrow, none other anchor of 
hope, none other stay in trial and in death. ‘I com- 
mend you to God and the word of His grace,’ which is 
a storehouse full of all that we need for life and for 
godliness. Whoever has it is like a landowner who 
has a quarry on his estate, from which at will he can 
dig stones to build his house. If you truly possess and 
faithfully adhere to this Gospel, you have enough. 

Remember that these believers to whom Paul thus 
spoke had no New Testament, and most of them, I dare 
say, could not read the Old. There were no written 
Gospels in existence. The greater part of the New 
Testament was not written; what was written was 
in the shape of two or three letters that belonged to 
Churches in another part of the world altogether. It 
was to the spoken word that he commended them. 
How much more securely may we trust one another 
to that permanent record of the divine revelation 
which we have here in the pages of Scripture! 

As for the individual, so for the Church, that written 
word is the guarantee for its purity and immortality. 
Christianity is the only religion that has ever passed 
through periods of decadence and purified itself again, 


BBs) 3S 


206 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


They used to say that Thames water was the best to 
put on shipboard because, after it became putrid, it 
cleared itself and became sweet again. Ido not know 
anything about whether that is true or not, but I 
know that it is true about Christianity. Over and 
over again it has rotted, and over and over again it 
has cleared itself, and it has always been by the one 
process. Men have gone back to the word and laid 
hold again of it in its simple omnipotence, and so a 
decadent Christianity has sprung up again into purity 
and power. The word of, God, the principles of the 
revelation contained in Christ and recorded for ever in 
this New Testament, are the guarantee of the Church’s 
immortality and of the Church’s purity. This man and 
that man may fall away, provinces may be lost from the 
empire for a while, standards of rebellion and heresy 
may be lifted, but ‘the foundation of God standeth sure,’ 
and whoever will hark back again and dig down through 
the rubbish of human buildings to the living Rock will 
build secure and dwell at peace. If all our churches 
were pulverised to-morrow, and every formal creed of 
Christendom were torn in pieces, and all the institu- 
tions of the Church were annihilated—if there was a 
New Testament left they would all be built up again. 
‘I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.’ 

II. Secondly, notice the possible benefit of the 
silencing of the human voice. 

Paul puts together his absence and the power of the 
word. ‘Now I know that you will see my face no 
more’—‘I commend you to God.’ That is to say, it is 
often a good thing that the voice of man may be 
hushed in order that the sweeter and deeper music of 
the word of God, sounding from no human lips, may 
reach our hearts. Of course I am not going to 








ee te, 


v. 32] PARTING WORDS 207 


depreciate preachers and books and religious literature 
and the thought and the acts of good and wise men 
who have been interpreters of God’s meaning and will 
to their brethren, but the human ministration of the 
divine word, like every other help to knowing God, may 
become a hindrance instead of a help; and in all such 
helps there is a tendency, unless there be continual 
jealous watchfulness on the part of those who minister 
them, and on the part of those who use them, to assert 
themselves instead of leading to God, and to become not 
mirrors in which we may behold God, but obscuring 
media which come between us and Him. This danger 
belongs to the great ordinance and office of the 
Christian ministry, large as its blessings are, just as it 
belongs to all other offices which are appointed for the 
purpose of bringing men to God. We may make them 
ladders or we may make them barriers; we may climb 
by them or we may remain in them. We may look at 
the colours on the painted glass until we do not-see or 
think of the light which strikes through the colours. 
So it is often a good thing that a human voice which 
speaks the divine word, should be silenced; just as 
it is often a good thing that other helps and props 
should be taken away. No man ever leans all his 
weight upon God’s arm until every other crutch on 
which he used to lean has been knocked from him. 
And therefore, dear brethren, applying these plain 
things to ourselves, may I not say that it may and 
should be the result of my temporary absence from you 
that some of you should be driven to a more first-hand 
acquaintance with God and with His word? I, like all 
Christian ministers, have of course my favourite ways 
of looking at truth, limitations of temperament, and 
idiosyncrasies of various sorts, which colour the repre- 


208 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xx. 


sentations that I make of God’s great word. All the 


river cannot run through any pipe; and what does run — 


is sure to taste somewhat of the soil through which it 
runs. And for some of you, after thirty years of 
hearing my way of putting things—and I have long 
since told you all that I have got to say—it will be a 
good thing to have some one else to speak to you, who 
will come with other aspects of that great Truth, and 
look at it from other angles and reflect other hues 
of its perfect whiteness. So partly because of these 
limitations of mine, partly, because you have grown so 
accustomed to my voice that the things that I say do 
not produce half as much effect on many of you as if I 
were saying them to somebody else, or somebody else 
were saying them to you, and partly because the 
affection, born of so many years of united worship, for 
which in many respects I am your debtor, may lead 
you to look at the vessel rather than the treasure, do 
you not think it may be a means of blessing and help 
to this congregation that I should step aside for a little 
while and some one else should stand here, and you 
should be driven to make acquaintance with ‘ God and 
the word of His grace’ a little more for yourselves? 
What does it matter though you do not have my 
sermons? You have your Bibles and you have God's 
Spirit. And if my silence shall lead any of you to prize 
and to use these more than you have done, then my 
silence will have done a great deal more than my 
speech. Ministers are like doctors, the test of their 
success is that they are not needed any more. And 
when we can say, ‘They can stand without us, and 
they do not need us, that is the crown of our ministry. 

III. Thirdly, notice the best expression of Christian 
solicitude and affection. 





el tn ee, ae 


= = “sat ww, oT 


v. 32] PARTING WORDS 209 


‘I commend you, says Paul, ‘to God, and to the word 
of His grace.’ If we may venture upon a very literal 
translation of the word, it is, ‘I lay you down beside 
God.’ That is beautiful, is it not? Here had Paul been 
carrying the Ephesian Church on his back for a long 
time now. He had many cares about them, many 
forebodings as to their future, knowing very well that 
after his departure grievous wolves were going to 
enter in. He says, ‘I cannot carry the load any 
longer; here I lay it down at the Throne, beneath 
those pure Hyes, and that gentle and strong Hand.’ 
For to commend them to God is in fact a prayer 
casting the care which Paul could no longer exercise, 
upon Him. 

And that is the highest expression of, as it is the 
only soothing for, manly Christian solicitude and 
affection. Of course you and I, looking forward to 
these six months of absence, have all of us our 
anxieties about what may be the issue. I may feel 
afraid lest there should be flagging here, lest good 
work should be done a little more languidly, lest there 
should be a beggarly account of empty pews many a 
time, lest the bonds of Christian union here should be 
loosened, and when I come back I may find it hard 
work to reknit them. All these thoughts must be in 
the mind of a true man who has put most of his life, 
and as much of himself as during that period he could 
command, into his work. What then? ‘I commend 
you to God. You may have your thoughts and 
anxieties as well as I have mine. Dear brethren, let 
us make an end of solicitude and turn it into peti- 
tion and bring one another to God, and leave one 
another there. 

This ‘commending,’ as it is the highest expression of 

VOL. II. Oo 


210 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES  [cu. xx. 


Christian solicitude, so it is the highest and most 
natural expression of Christian affection. I am not 
going to do what is so easy to do—bring tears at such 
amoment. I do not purpose to speak of the depth, the 
sacredness of the bond that unites a great many of us 
together. I think we can take that for granted 
without saying any more about it. But, dear brethren, 
Ido want to pledge you and myself to this, that our 
solicitude and our affection should find voice in prayer, 
and that when we are parted we may be united, 
because the eyes of both are turned to the one Throne. 
There is a reality in prayer. Do you pray for me, as 
I will for you, when we are far apart. And as the 
vapour that rises from the southern seas where I go 
may fall in moisture, refreshing these northern lands, 
so what rises on one side of the world from believ- 
ing hearts in loving prayers may fall upon the other in 
the rain of a divine blessing. ‘I commend you to God, 
and the word of His grace.’ 

IV. Lastly, notice the parting counsels involved in 
the commendation. 

If it.be true that God and His Word are the source 
of all security and enlightenment, and are so, apart 
altogether from human agencies, then to commend 
these brethren to God was exhortation as well as 
prayer, and implied pointing them to the one source of 
security that they might cling to that source. I am 
going to give no advices about little matters of church 
order and congregational prosperity. These will all 
come right, if the two main exhortations that are 
involved in this text are laid to heart; and if they are 
not laid to heart, then I do not care one rush about the 
smaller. things, of full pews and prosperous subscrip- 
tion lists and Christian work. These are secondary, 





v.32] PARTING WORDS 211 


and they will be consequent if you take these two 
advices that are couched in my text :-— 

(a) ‘Cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart,’ 
as the limpet does to the rock. Cling to Jesus Christ, 
the revelation of God’s grace. And how do we cling to 
Him? What is the cement of souls? Love and trust; 
and whoever exercises these in reference to Jesus 
Christ is built into Him, and belongs to Him, and has a 
vital unity knitting him with that Lord. Cleave to 
Christ, brother, by faith and love, by communion and 
prayer, and by practical conformity of life. For 
remember that the union which is effected by faith 
can be broken by sin, and that there will be no reality 
in our union to Jesus unless it is manifested and 
perpetuated by righteousness of conduct and character. 
Two smoothly-ground pieces of glass pressed together 
will adhere. If there be a speck of sand, microscopic in 
dimensions, between the two, they will fall apart; and 
if you let tiny grains of sin come between you and 
your Master, it is delusion to speak of being knit to 
Him by faith and love. Keep near Jesus Christ and 
you will be safe. 

(b) Cleave to ‘the word of His grace.’ Try to under- 
_ stand its teachings better; study your Bibles with 
more earnestness; believe more fully than you have 
ever done that in that great Gospel there lie every 
truth that we need and guidance in all circumstances. 
Bring the principles of Christianity into your daily 
life; walk by the light of them; and live in the 
radiance of a present God. And then all these other 
matters which I have spoken of, which are important, 
highly important but secondary, will come right. 

Many of you, dear brethren, have listened to my 
voice for long years, and have not done the one thing 


212 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xx, 


for which I preach—viz. set your faith, as sinful men, 
on the great atoning Sacrifice and Incarnate Lord. I 
beseech you let my last word go deeper than its prede- 
cessors, and yield yourselves to God in Christ, bringing 
all your weakness and all your sin to Him, and 
trusting yourselves wholly and utterly to His sacrifice 
and life. 

‘I commend you to God and to the word of His 
grace, and beseech you ‘that, whether I come to see 
you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that 
ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving 
together for the faith of the Gospel.’ 


THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING 


*, «- Itis more blessed to give than to receive.’-—AOoTS xx, 35. 


How ‘many other things Jesus did’ and said ‘which 
are not written in this book’! Here is one precious 
unrecorded word, which was floating down to the 
ocean of oblivion when Paul drew it to shore and so 
enriched the world. There is, however, a saying re- 
corded, which is essentially parallel in content though 
differing in garb, ‘The Son of Man came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister. It is tempting to 
think that the text gives a glimpse into the deep foun- 
tains of the pure blessedness of Jesus Himself, and was 
a transcript of His own human experience. It helps 
us to understand how the Man of Sorrows could give 
as a legacy to His followers ‘ My joy, and could speak 
of it as abiding and full. 

I. The reasons on which this saying rests. 

It is based not only on the fact that the act of giving 





v.35] THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING 2138 


has in it a sense of power and of superiority, and that 
. the act of receiving may have a painful consciousness 
of obligation, though a cynic might endorse it on that 
ground, but on a truth far deeper than these, that there 
is a pure and godlike joy in making others blessed. 

The foundation on which the axiom rests is that 
giving is the result of love and self-sacrifice. Whenever 
they are not found, the giving is not the giving which 
‘blesses Lim that gives.’ If you give with some arriére 
pensée of what you will get by it, or for the sake of 
putting some one under obligation, or indifferently 
as a matter of compulsion or routine, if with your 
alms there be contempt to which pity is ever near akin, 
then these are not examples of the giving on which 
Christ pronounced His benediction. But where the 
heart is full of deep, real love, and where that love 
expresses itself by a cheerful act of self-sacrifice, then 
there is felt a glow of calm blessedness far above the 
base and greedy joys of self-centred souls who delight 
only in keeping their possessions, or in using them for 
themselves. It comes not merely from contemplating 
the relief or happiness in others of which our gifts may 
have been the source, but from the working in our own 
hearts of these two godlike emotions. To be delivered 
from making myself my great object, and to be de- 
livered from the undue value set upon having and 
keeping our pessessions, are the twin factors of true 
blessedness. It is heaven on earth to love and to give 
oneself away. 

Then again, the highest joy and noblest use of all 
our possessions is found in imparting them. 

True as to this world’s goods. 

The old epitaph is profoundly true, which puts into 
the dead lips the declaration: ‘What I kept I lost. 


bes We | 1a ORR 


214 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx. 


What I gave I kept.’ Better to learn that and act on 
it while living! 

True as to truth, and knowledge. 

True as to the Gospel of the grace of God. 

II. The great example in God of the blessedness of 
giving. ; 

God gives—gives only—gives always—and He in 
giving has joy, blessedness. He would not be ‘the 
ever-blessed God’ unless He were ‘the giving God.’ 
Creation we are perhaps scarcely warranted in affirm- 
ing to be a necessity to the divine nature, and we run © 
on perilous heights of speculation when we speak of it 
as contributing to His blessedness; but this at least we 
may say, that He, in the deep words of the Psalmist, 
‘delights in mercy.’ Before creation was realised in 
time, the divine Idea of it was eternal, inseparable from 
His being, and therefore from everlasting He ‘ rejoiced 
in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights 
were with the sons of men.’ 

The light and glory thus thrown on His relation to us. 

He gives. He does not exact until He has given. He 
gives what He requires. The requirement is made in 
love and is itself a ‘ grace given, for it permits to God’s 
creatures, in their relation to Him, some feeble portion 
and shadow of the blessedness which He possesses, by 
permitting them to bring offerings to His throne, and 
so to have the joy of giving to Him what He has given 
to them. ‘All things come of Thee, and of Thine own 
have we given Thee. Then how this thought puts an 
end to all manner of slavish notions about God’s com- 
mands and demands, and about worship, and about 
merits, or winning heaven by our own works. 

Notice that the same emotions which we have found 
to: make the blessedness of giving are those which 


v. 35] NEARER TO THE STORM 215 


come into play in the act of receiving spiritual bless- 
ings. We receive the Gospel by faith, which assuredly 
has in it love and self-sacrifice. 

Having thus the great Example of all giving in 
heaven, and the shadow and reflex of that example in 
our relations to Him on earth, we are thereby fitted 
for the exemplification of it in our relation to men. 
To give, not to get, is to be our work, to love, to sacri- 
fice ourselves. 

This axiom should regulate Christians’ relation to 
the world, and to each other, in every way. It should 
shape the Christian use of money. It should shape our 
use of all which we have. 


DRAWING NEARER TO THE STORM 


‘ And it came to pass, that, after we were gotten from them, and had launched, 
we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, 
and from thence unto Patara: 2, And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, 
we went aboard, and set forth. 3. Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left 
it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre: for there the ship 
was to unladeher burden. 4. And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: 
who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem. 
5. And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; 
and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of 
the city : and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed. 6. And when we had 
taken our leave one of another, we took ship: and they returned home again. 
7. And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and 
saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day. 8. And the next day we that 
were of Paul’s company departed, and came unto Ceesarea: and we entered into 
the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with 
him. 9. And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. 
10. And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judza a certain 
prophet, named Agabus. 11. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s 
girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, 
So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall 
deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. 12. And when we heard these things, 
both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. 
13. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for 
Iam ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the 
Lord Jesus. 14. And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The 
will of the Lord be done. 15. And after those days we took up our carriages, and 
went up to Jerusalem.’—ACTS xxi. 1-15. 


Pavw’s heroic persistency in disregarding the warnings 
of ‘bonds and afflictions’ which were pealed into his 





} 
216 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xx 


ears in every city, is the main point of interest in this 
section. But the vivid narrative abounds with details 
which fill it with life and colour. We may gather it all 
round three points—the voyage, Tyre, and Ceesarea. 


I. The log of the voyage, as given in verses 1-3, shows . 


the leisurely way of navigation in those days and in 
that sea. Obviously the coaster tied up or anchored 
in port at night. Running down the coast from 
Miletus, they stayed overnight, first at the small island 
of Coos, then stretched across the next day to Rhodes, 
and on the third struck back to the mainland at 
Patara, from which, according to one reading, they 
ran along the coast a little further east to Myra, the 
usual port of departure for Syria. Ramsay explains 
that the prevalent favourable wind for a vessel bound 


for Syria blows steadily in early morning, and dies 


down towards nightfall, so that there would have 
been no use in keeping at sea after sundown. 

At Patara (or Myra) Paul and his party had to tran- 
ship, for their vessel was probably of small tonnage, 
and only fit to run along the coast. In either port 
they would have no difficulty in finding some merchant- 
man to take them across to Syria. Accordingly they 
shifted into one bound for Tyre, and apparently ready 
to sail. The second part of their voyage took them 
right out to sea, and their course lay to the west, and 
then to the south of Cyprus, which Luke mentions as 
if to remind us of Paul’s visit there when he was begin- 
ning his missionary work. How much had passed 
since that day at Paphos (which they might have 
sighted from the deck)! He had left Paphos with 


Barnabas and John Mark—where were they? He had ~ 


sailed away from Cyprus to carry the Gospel among 
Gentiles; he sails past it, accompanied by a group of 





vs.1-15] NEARER TO THE STORM 217 


these whom he had won for Christ. There he had 
begun his career; now the omens indicated that 
possibly its end was near. Many a thought would be 
in his mind as he looked out over the blue waters and 
saw the glittering roofs and groves of Paphos. 

Tyre was the first port of call, and there the cargo 
was to be landed. The travellers had to wait till that 
was done, and probably another one shipped. The seven 
days’ stay is best understood as due to that cause; for 
we find that Paul re-embarked in the same ship, and 
went in her as far as Ptolemais, at all events, perhaps 
to Czesarea. 

We note that no brethren are mentioned as having 
been met at any of the ports of call, and no evangelistic 
work as having been done in them. The party were 
simple passengers, who had to shape their movements 
to suit the convenience of the master of the vessel, and 
were only in port at night, and off again next morning 
early. No doubt the leisure at sea was as restorative 
to them as it often is to jaded workers now. 

II. Tyre was a busy seaport then, and in its large 
population the few disciples would make but little show. 
They had to be sought out before they were ‘found.’ 
One can feel how eagerly the travellers would search, 
and how thankfully they would find themselves again 
among congenial souls. Since Miletus they had had no 
Christian communion, and the sailors in such a ship as 
theirs would not be exactly kindred spirits. So that 
week in Tyre would be a blessed break in the voyage. 
We hear nothing of visiting the synagogue, nor of 
preaching to the non-Christian population, nor of 
instruction to the little Church. 

The whole interest of the stay at Tyre is, for Luke, 
centred on the fact that here too the same message 





218 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx 


which had met Paul everywhere was repeated to him. 
It was ‘through the Spirit.’ Then was Paul flying in 
the face of divine prohibitions when he held on his 
way in spite of all that could be said? Certainly not. 
We have to bring common sense to bear on the inter- 
pretation of the words in vefse 4, and must suppose 
that what came from ‘the Spirit’ was the prediction 
of persecutions waiting Paul, and that the exhortation 
to avoid these by keeping clear of Jerusalem was the 
voice of human affection only. Such a blending of 
clear insight and of mistaken deductions from it is no 
strange experience. 

No word is said as to the effect of the Tyrian 
Christians’ dissuasion. It had none. Luke mentions 
it in order to show how continuous was the repetition 
of the same note, and his silence as to the manner of 
its reception is eloquent. The parting scene at Tyre 
is like, and yet very unlike, that at Miletus. In both 
the Christians accompany Paul to the beach, in both 
they kneel down and pray. It would scarcely have 
been a Christian parting without that. In both loving 
farewells are said, and perhaps waved when words 
could no longer be heard. But at Tyre, where there 
were no bonds of old comradeship nor of affection to 
a spiritual father, there was none of the yearning, 
clinging love that could not bear to part, none of the 
hanging on Paul’s neck, none of the deep sorrow of 
final separation. The delicate shades of difference in 
two scenes so similar tell of the hand of an eye-witness. 
The touch that ‘all’ the Tyrian Christians went down 
to the beach, and took their wives and children with 
them, suggests that they can have been but a small 
community, and so confirms the hint given by the use 
of the word ‘found’ in verse 4, 


2 


et ae! a ae ee, ee 


vs.1-15] NEARER TO THE STORM 219 


III. The vessel ran down the coast to Ptolemais 
where one day’s stop was made, probably to land and 
ship cargo, if, as is possible, the further journey to 
Czesarea was by sea. But it may have been by land; 
the narrative is silent on that point. At Ptolemais, as 
at Tyre, there was a little company of disciples, the 
brevity of the stay with whom, contrasted with the 
long halt in Czsarea, rather favours the supposition 
that the ship’s convenience ruled the Apostle’s move- 
ments till he reached the latter place. There he found 
a haven of rest, and, surrounded by loving friends, no 
wonder that the burdened Apostle lingered there before 
plunging into the storm of which he had had so 
many warnings. 

The eager haste of the earlier part of the journey, 
contrasted with the delay in Cesarea at the threshold 
of his goal, is explained by supposing that at the 
beginning Paul's one wish had been to get to Jerusalem 
in time for the Feast, and that at Czesarea he found that, 
thanks to his earlier haste and his good passages, he 
had a margin to spare. He did not wish to get to the 
Holy City much before the Feast. 

Two things only are told as occurring in Cesarea— 
the intercourse with Philip and the renewed warnings 
about going to Jerusalem. Apparently Philip had 
been in Czsarea ever since we last heard of him 
(chap. viii... He had brought’ his family there, and 
settled down in the headquarters of Roman govern- 
ment. He had been used by Christ to carry the Gospel 
to men outside the Covenant, and for a time it seemed 
as if he was to be the messenger to the Gentiles; but 
that mission soon ended, and the honour and toil fell 
to another. But neither did Philip envy Paul, nor did 
Paul avoid Philip. The Master has the right to settle 





4 * 


220 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ceu. xx1, — 


what each slave has to do, and whether He sets him 
to high or low office, it matters not. B, 

Philip might have been contemptuous and jealous 
of the younger man, who had been nobody when he 
was chosen as one of the Seven, but had so faroutrun 
him now. But no paltry personal feeling marred the a 
Christian intercourse of the two, and we can imagine ag 
how much each had to tell the other, with perhaps 
Cornelius for a third in company, during the consider- 
ably extended stay in Czsarea. No doubt Luke too 
made good use of the opportunity of increasing his 
knowledge of the first days,and probably derived much 
of the material for the first chapters of Acts from 
Philip, either then or at his subsequent longer residence 
in the same city. “a : 

We have heard of the prophet Agabus before (chap. 
xi. 28). Why he is introduced here, as if a stranger, 
we cannot tell, and it is useless to guess, and absurd 
to sniff suspicion of genuineness in the peculiarity. i 
His prophecy is more definite than any that preceded 
it. That is God’s way. He makes things clearer as ; 
we go on, and warnings more emphatic as danger — 
approaches. The source of the ‘afflictions’ was now 3 





















would take. Jews would ‘datives Paul to Gentiles, as 
they had delivered Paul’s Master. 
But there the curtain falls. What would the Gentiles “ 


rest. That was more trying to nerves and courag 
than full disclosure to the very end would haye beer 
Magee had just enough to work on, and was 7 


vs. 1-15] NEARER TO THE STORM 221 


future which we get in our own lives. We see but a 
little way ahead, and then the road takes a sharp 
turn, and we fancy dreadful shapes hiding round the 
corner. 

Paul’s courage was unmoved both by Agabus’s incom- 
plete prophecy and by the tearful implorings of his 
companions and of the Cesarean Christians. His 
pathetic words to them are misunderstood if we take 
‘break my heart’ in the modern sense of that phrase, 
for it really means ‘to melt away my resolution,’ and 
shows that Paul felt that the passionate grief of his 
brethren was beginning to do what no fear for him- 
self could do—shake even his steadfast purpose. No 
more lovely blending of melting tenderness and iron 
determination has ever been put into words than that 
cry of his, followed by the great utterance which 
proclaimed his readiness to bear all things, even death 
itself, for ‘the name of the Lord Jesus.’ What kindled 
and fed that noble flame of self-devotion? The love of 
Jesus Christ, built on the sense that He had redeemed 
the soul of His servant, and had thereby bought him 
for His own. 

If we feel that we have been ‘bought with a price, 
we too, in our small spheres, shall be filled with that 
ennobling passion of devoted love which will not count 
life dear if He calls us to give it up. Let us learn from 
Paul how to blend the utmost gentleness and tender 
responsiveness to all love with fixed determination to 
glorify the Name. A strong will and a loving heart 
make a marvellously beautiful combination, and should 
both abide in every Christian. 





PHILIP THE EVANGELIST 


*. .. We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the 
seven; and abode with him.’—Acts xxi. 8. 
Tue life of this Philip, as recorded, is a very remarkable 
one. It is divided into two unequal halves: one full of 
conspicuous service, one passed in absolute obscurity. 
Like the moon in its second quarter, part of the dise 
is shining silver and the rest is invisible. Let us put 
together the notices of him. 

He bears a name which makes it probable that he 
was not a Palestinian Jew, but one of the many who, 
of Jewish descent, had lived in Gentile lands and con- 
tracted Gentile habits and associations. We first hear 
of him as one of the Seven who were chosen by the 
Church, at the suggestion of the Apostles, in order to 
meet the grumbling of that section of the Church, who 
were called ‘Hellenists,’ about their people being 
neglected in the distribution of alms. He stands in 
that list next to Stephen, who was obviously the leader. 
Then after Stephen’s persecution, he flies from Jeru- 
salem, like the rest of the Church, and comes down to 
Samaria and preaches there. He did that because cir- 
cumstances drove him; he had become one of the Seven 
because his brethren appointed him, but his next step 
was in obedience to a specific command of Christ. He 
went and preached the Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, 
and then he was borne away from the new convert, 
and after the Spirit had put him down at Ashdod he 
had to tramp all the way up the Palestinian coast, left 
to the guidance of his own wits, until he came to 
Ceesarea. There he remained for twenty years; and we 
do not hear a word about him in all that time. But at 


last Paul and his companions, hurrying to keep the 
228 


v. 8] PHILIP THE EVANGELIST 223 


Feast at Jerusalem, found that they had a little time to 
spare when they reached Czesarea, and so they came to 
‘the house of Philip the evangelist, whom we last 
heard of twenty years before, and spent ‘many days’ 
with him. That is the final glimpse that we have of 
Philip. 

Now let us try to gather two or three plain lessons, 
especially those which depend on that remarkable con- 
trast between the first and the second periods of this 
man’s life. There is, first, a brief space of brilliant ser- 
vice, and then there are long years of obscure toil. 

I. The brief space of brilliant service. 

The Church was in a state of agitation, and there 
was murmuring going on because, as I have already 
said, a section of it thought that their poor were un- 
fairly dealt with by the native-born Jews in the Church. 
And so the Apostles said: ‘What is the use of your 
squabbling thus? Pick out any seven that you like, of 
the class that considers itself aggrieved, and we will 
put the distribution of these eleemosynary grants into 
their hands. That will surely stop your mouths. Do 
you choose whom you please, and we will confirm your 
choice.’ So the Church selected seven brethren, all 
apparently belonging to the ‘Grecians’ or Greek- 
~ speaking Jews, as the Apostles had directed that they 
should be, and one of them, not a Jew by birth, but 
a ‘proselyte of Antioch. These men’s partialities 
would all be in favour of the class to which they 
belonged, and to secure fair play for which they were 
elected by it. 

Now these seven are never called ‘deacons’ in the 
New Testament, though it is supposed that they were 
the first holders of that office. It is instructive to note 
how their office came into existence. It was created by 


224 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xx1 


the Apostles, simply as the handiest way of getting 
over a difficulty. Is that the notion of Church organ- 
isation that prevails among some of our brethren 
who believe that organisation is everything, and 
that unless a Church has the three orders of bishops, 
priests, and deacons, it is not worth calling a Church at 
all? The plain fact is that the Church at the beginning 
had no organisation. What organisation it had grew 
up as circumstances required. The only two laws which 
governed organisation were, first, ‘One is your Master, 
even Christ, and all ye are brethren’; and second, 
‘When the Spirit of the Lord is come upon thee, thou 
shalt do as occasion shall serve thee. Thus these seven 
were appointed to deal with a temporary difficulty and 
to distribute alms when necessary; and their office 
dropped when it was no longer required, as was pro- 
bably the case when, very soon after, the Jerusalem 
Church was scattered. Then, by degrees, came elders and 
deacons. People fancy that there is but one rigid, un- 
alterable type of Church organisation, when the reality 
is that it is fluent and flexible, and that the primitive 
Church never was meant to be the pattern according 
to which, in detail, and specifically, other Churches in 
different circumstances should be constituted. There 
are great principles which no organisation must break, 
but if these be kept, the form is a matter of convenience. 

That is the first lesson that I take out of this story. 
Although it has not much to do with Philip himself, 
still it is worth saying in these days when a par- 
ticular organisation of the Church is supposed to be 
essential to Christian fellowship, and we Nonconform- 
ists, who have not the ‘orders’ that some of our 
brethren seem to think indispensable, are by a con- 
siderable school unchurched, because we are without 





v. 8] PHILIP THE EVANGELIST 225 


them. But the primitive Church also was without 
them. 

Still further and more important for us, in these 
brief years of brilliant service I note the spontaneous 
impulse which sets a Christian man to do Christian 
work. It was his brethren that picked out Philip, and 
said, ‘Now go and distribute alms, but his brethren 
had nothing to do with his next step. He was driven 
by circumstances out of Jerusalem, and he found 
himself in Samaria, and perhaps he remembered how 
Jesus Christ had said, on the day when He went up into 
Heaven, ‘ Ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jeru- 
salem and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of 
the earth. But whether he remembered that or not, 
he was here in Samaria, amongst the ancestral enemies 
of his nation. Nobody told him to preach when he 
went to Samaria. He had no commission from the 
Apostles to do so. He did not hold any office in the 
Church, except that which, according to the Apostles’ 
intention in establishing it, ought to have stopped his 
mouth from preaching. For they said, when they ap- 
pointed these seven, ‘ Let them serve tables, and we will 
give ourselves to the ministry of the word.’ But Jesus 
Christ has a way of upsetting men’s restrictions as to 
the functions of His servants. And so Philip, with- 
out a commission, and with many prejudices to stop 
his mouth, was the first to break through the limita- 
tions which confined the message of salvation to the 
Jews. Because he found himself in Samaria, and they 
needed Christ there, he did not wait for Peter and 
James and John to lay their hands upon his head, 
and say, ‘Now you are entitled to speak about Him’; 
he did not wait for any appointment, but yielded to his 
own heart, a heart that was full of Jesus Christ, and 

VOL. IL. P 





226 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cs. xxi 


must speak about Him; and he proclaimed the Gospel 
in that city. 

So he has the noble distinction of being the very first 
Christian man who put a bold foot across the boundary 
of Judaism, and showed a light to men that were in 
darkness beyond. Remember he did it as a simple 
private Christian; uncalled, uncommissioned, unor- 
dained by anybody; and he did it because he could not 
help it, and he never thought to himself, ‘I am doing a 
daring, new thing. It seemed the most natural thing 
in the world that he should preach in Samaria. So it 
would be to us, if we were Christians with the depth 
of faith and of personal experience which this man 
had. 

There is another lesson that I take from these first 
busy years of Philip’s service. Christ provides wider 
spheres for men who have been faithful in narrower 
ones. It was because he had ‘won his spurs, if I may 
so say, in Samaria, and proved the stuff he was made 
of, that the angel of the Lord came and said to Philip, 
‘Go down on the road to Gaza, which is desert. Do 
not ask now what you are to do when you get there. 
Go!’ So with his sealed orders he went. No doubt he 
thought to himself, ‘Strange that I should be taken 
from this prosperous work in Samaria, and sent to a 
desert road, where there is not a single human being!’ 
But he went; and when he struck the point of junction 
of the road from Samaria with that from Jerusalem, 
looked about to discover what he had been sent there 
for. The only thing in sight was one chariot, and he 
said to himself, ‘Ah, that is it, and he drew near to 
the chariot, and heard the occupant reading aloud 
Isaiah’s great prophecy. The Ethiopian chamberlain 
was probably not. very familiar with the Greek trans- 


v. 8] PHILIP THE EVANGELIST 227 


lation of the Old Testament, which he seems to have 
been using and, as poor readers often do, helped his 
comprehension by speaking-the words he sees on the 
page. Philip knew at once that here was the object 
of his mission, and so ‘joined himself to the chariot, 
and set himself to his work. 

So Christ chooses His agents for further work from 
those who, out of their own spontaneous love of Him, 
have done what lay at their hands. ‘To him that hath 
shall be given.’ If you are ambitious of a wider sphere, 
be sure that you fill your narrow one. It will widen 
quite fast enough for your capacities. 

II. Now let me say a word about the long years of 
obscurity. 

Philip went down to Cesarea, and, as I said, he drops 
out of the story for twenty years. I wonder why it 
was that when Jesus Christ desired that Cornelius, who 
lived in Czesarea, should hear the gospel, He did not 
direct him to Philip, who also was in Cesarea, but bid 
him send all the way to Joppa to bring Peter thence? 
I wonder why it was that when Barnabas at Antioch 
turned his face northwards to seek for young Saul at 
Tarsus, he never dreamed of turning southwards to call 
out Philip from Cezsarea? I wonder how it came to 
pass that this man, who at one time looked as if he was 
going to be the leader in the extension of the Church 
to the Gentiles, and who, as a matter of fact, was the 
first, not only in Samaria but on the desert road, to press 
beyond the narrow bounds of Judaism, was passed over 
in the further stages by Jesus, and why his brethren 
passed him over, and left him there all these years in 
Ceesarea, whilst-there was so much going on that was 
the continuation and development of the very move- 
ment that he had begun. We do not know why, and it 





228 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cea. xxt. 


is useless to try to speculate, but we may learn lessons 
from the fact. 

Here is a beautiful instance of the contented accept- 
ance of a lot very much less conspicuous, very much 
less brilliant, than the early beginnings had seemed to 
promise. I suppose that there are very few of us but 
have had, back in the far-away past, moments when we 
seemed to have opening out before us great prospects 
of service which have never been realised; and the 
remembrance of the brief moments of dawning splen- 
dour is very apt to make the rest of the life look grey 
and dull, and common things flat, and to make us sour. 
We look back and we think, ‘Ah, the gates were 
opened for me then, but how they have slammed to 
since! It is hard for me to go on in this lowly condition, 
and this eclipsed state into which I have been brought, 
without feeling how different it might have been if 
those early days had only continued.’ Well, for Philip 
it was enough that Jesus Christ sent him to the eunuch 
and did not send him to Cornelius. He took the posi- 
tion that his Master put him in and worked away 
therein. 

And there is a further lesson for us, who, for the 
most part, have to lead obscure lives. For there was 
in Philip not only a contented acceptance of an obscure 


life, but there was a diligent doing of obscure work. 


Did you notice that one significant little word in the 
clause that I have taken for my text: ‘ We entered into 
the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the 
seven’? Luke does not forget Philip’s former office, 
but he dwells rather on what his other office was, 
twenty years afterwards. He was ‘an evangelist’ now, 
although the evangelistic work was being done in 
a very quiet corner, and nobody was paying much 


v. 8] PHILIP THE EVANGELIST 229 


attention to it. Time was when he had a great states- 
man to listen to his words. Time was when a whole city 
was moved by his teaching. Time was when it looked 
as if he was going to do the work that Paul did. But 
all these visions were shattered, and he was left to toil 
for twenty long years in that obscure corner, and nota 
soul knew anything about his work except the people 
to whom it was directed and the four unmarried girls 
at home whom his example had helped to bring to 
Jesus Christ, and who were ‘ prophetesses.’ At the end 
of the twenty years he is ‘ Philip the evangelist.’ 

There is patient perseverance at unrecompensed, 
unrecorded, and unnoticed work. ‘Great’ and ‘small’ 
have nothing to do with the work of Christian people. 
It does not matter who knows our work or who does 
not know it, the thing is that He knows it. Now the 
most of us have to do absolutely unnoticed Christian 
service. Those of us who are in positions like mine have 
a little more notoriety—and it is no blessing—and a 
year or two after a man’s voice ceases to sound from a 
pulpit he is forgotten. What does it matter? ‘Surely 
I will never forget any of their works.’ And in these 
advertising days, when publicity seems to be the great 
good that people in so many cases seek after, and 
no one is contented to do his little bit of work unless 
he gets reported in the columns of the newspapers, we 
may all take example from the behaviour of Philip, 
and remember the man who began so brilliantly, and 
for twenty years was hidden, and was ‘the evangelist’ 
all the time. 

III. Now, there is one last lesson that I would draw, 
and that is the ultimate recognition of the work and 
the joyful meeting of the workers. 

I think it is very beautiful to see that when Paul 





230 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xx1 


entered Philip's house he came into a congenial atmo- 
sphere; and although he had been hurrying, out of 
breath as it were, all the way from Corinth to get to 
Jerusalem in time for the Feast, he slowed off at once; 
partly, no doubt, because he found that he was in time, 
and partly, no doubt, that he felt the a ah of 
the society that he met. 

So there was no envy in Philip’s heart of the 
younger brother that had so outrun him. He was quite 
content to share the fate of pioneers, and rejoiced in 
the junior who had entered into his labour. ‘One 
soweth and another reapeth’; he was prepared for 
that, and rejoiced to hear about what the Lord had 
done by his brother, though once he had thought it 
might have been done by him. How they would talk! 
How much there would be to tell! How glad the old 3 
man would be at the younger man’s success! 4 

And there was one sitting by who did not say very t 
much, but had his ears wide open, and his name was 
Luke. In Philip’s long, confidential conversations he : 
no doubt got some of the materials, which have been f 
preserved for us in this book, for his account of the ; 
early days of the Church in Jerusalem. 

So Philip, after all, was not working in so obscure a 
corner as he thought. The whole world knows about + 
him. He had been working behind a curtain all the ; 
while, and he never knew that ‘the beloved physician, 
who was listening so eagerly to all he had to tell about 
the early days, was going to twitch down the curtain 
and let the whole world see the work that he thought 
he was doing, all unknown and soon to be forgotten. 

And that is what will happen to us all. The curtain 
will be twitched down, and when it is, it will be good 
for us if we have the same record to show that this 


j 





v. 8] AN:OLD DISCIPLE 231 


man had—namely, toil for the Master, indifferent to 
whether men see or do not see; patient labour for Him, 
coming out of a heart purged of all envy and jealousy 
of those who have been called to larger and more con- 
spicuous service. 

May we not take these many days of quiet converse 
in Philip's house, when the pioneer and the perfecter 
of the work talked together, as being a kind of pro- 
phetic symbol of the time when all who had a share in 
the one great and then completed work will have a 
share in its joy? No matter whether they have dug 
the foundations or laid the early courses or set the 
top stone and the shining battlements that crown 
the structure, they have all their share in the building 
and their portion in the gladness of the completed 
edifice, ‘that he that soweth and he that reapeth may 
rejoice together.’ 


AN OLD DISCIPLE 


*,.. One Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge.’— 
ACTS xxi, 16. ‘ 
THERE is something that stimulates the imagination 
in these mere shadows of men that we meet in the 
New Testament story. What a strange fate that is 
to be made immortal by a line in this book—immortal 
and yet so unknown! We do not hear another word 
about this host of Paul’s, but his name will be familiar 
to men’s ears till the world’s end. This figure is drawn 
in the slightest possible outline, with a couple of hasty 
strokes of the pencil. But if we take even these few 
bare words and look at them, feeling that there is 
a man like ourselves sketched in them, I think we can 


ae 


232 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xxr 


get a real picture out of them, and that even this dim 
form crowded into the background of the Apostolic 
story may have a word or two to say to us. 
His name and his birthplace show that he belonged 
to the same class as Paul, that is, he was a Hellenist, 
or a Jew by descent, but born on Gentile soil, and 
speaking Greek. He came from Cyprus, the native 
island of Barnabas, who may have been a friend of 
his. He was an ‘old disciple, which does not mean 
simply that he was advanced in life, but that he was 
‘a disciple from the beginning, one of the original 
group of believers. If we interpret the word strictly, 
we must suppose him to have been one of the rapidly 
diminishing nucleus, who thirty years or more ago 
had seen Christ in the flesh, and been drawn to Him 
by His own words. Evidently the mention of the early 
date of his conversion suggests that the number of his 
contemporaries was becoming few, and that there were 
a certain honour and distinction conceded by the second 
generation of the Church to the survivors of the primi- 
tive band. Then, of course, as one of the earliest be- 
lievers, he must, by this time, have been advanced in life. 
A Cypriote by birth, he had emigrated to, and resided in 
a village on the road to Jerusalem; and must have had 
means and heart to exercise a liberal hospitality there. 
Though a Hellenist like Paul he does not seem to 
have known the Apostle before, for the most probable 
rendering of the context is that the disciples from 
Czesarea, who were travelling with the Apostle from 
that place to Jerusalem, ‘brought us to Mnason,’ im- 
plying that this was their first introduction to each 
other. But though probably unacquainted with the 
great teacher of the Gentiles—whose ways were looked 
on with much doubt by many of the Palestinian Chris- 


a 


v. 16] AN OLD DISCIPLE 233 


tians—the old man, relic of the original disciples as 
he was, had full sympathy with Paul, and opened his 
house and his heart to receive him. His adhesion to 
the Apostle would no doubt carry weight with ‘the 
many thousands of Jews which believed, and were 
all zealous of the law,’ and was as honourable to him 
as it was helpful to Paul. 

Now if we put all this together, does not the shadowy 
figure begin to become more substantial? and does it 
not preach to us some lessons that we may well take 
to heart? 

I. The first thing which this old disciple says to us 
out of the misty distance is: Hold fast to your early 
faith, and to the Christ whom you have known. 

Many a year had passed since the days when perhaps 
the beauty of the Master’s own character and the sweet- 
ness of His own words had drawn this man to Him. 
How much had come and gone since then—Calvary 
and the Resurrection, Olivet and the Pentecost! His 
own life and mind had changed from buoyant youth 
to sober old age. His whole feelings and outlook on 
the world were different. His old friends had mostly 
gone. James indeed was still there, and Peter and 
John remained until this present, but most had fallen 
on sleep. A new generation was rising round about 
him, and new thoughts and ways were at work. But 
one thing remained for him what it had been in the 
old days, and that was Christ. ‘One generation cometh 
and another goeth, but the “ Christ” abideth for ever.’ 


‘ We all are changed by still degrees; 
All but the basis of the soul,’ 


and the ‘basis of the soul,’ in the truest sense, is that 
one God-laid foundation on which whosoever buildeth 





234 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx1. 


shall never be confounded, nor ever need to change 
with changing time. Are we building there? and do 
we find that life, as it advances, but tightens our hold 
on Jesus Christ, who is our hope? 

There is no fairer nor happier experience than that 
of the old man who has around him the old loves, the 
old confidences, and some measure of the old joys. 
But who can secure that blessed unity in his life if 
he depend on the love and help of even the dearest, 
or on the light of any creature for his sunshine? 
There is but one way of making all our days one, 
because one love, one hope, one joy, one aim binds 
them all together, and that is by taking the abiding 
Christ for ours, and abiding in Him all our days. 
Holding fast by the early convictions does not mean 
stiffening in them. There is plenty of room for ad- 
vancement in Christ. No doubt Mnason, when he was 
first a disciple, knew but very little of the meaning 


and worth of his Master and His work, compared with 


what he had learned in all these years. And our true 
progress consists, not in growing away from Jesus 
but in growing up into Him, not in passing through 


and leaving behind our first convictions of Him as — 


Saviour, but in having these verified by the experience 
of years, deepened and cleared, unfolded and ordered 
into a larger, though still incomplete, whole. We may 
make our whole lives helpful to that advancement 
and blessed shall we be if the early faith is the faith 
that brightens till the end, and brightens the end. 
How beautiful it is to see a man, below whose feet 


time is crumbling away, holding firmly by the Lord 


whom he has loved and served all his days, and finding 
that the pillar of cloud, which guided him while he 
lived, begins to glow in its heart of fire as the shadows 


S rq ~*~ aa . 
-_—- Par ote 


v. 16] AN OLD DISCIPLE 235 


fall, and is a pillar of light to guide him when he 
comes to die! Dear friends, whether you be near the 
starting or near the prize of your Christian course, 
,cast not away your confidence, which hath great 
recompense of reward. See to it that the ‘knowledge 
of the Father,’ which is the ‘little children’s’ possession, 
passes through the strength of youth, and the ‘victory 
over the world’ into the calm knowledge of Him ‘that 
is from the beginning,’ wherein the fathers find their 
earliest convictions deepened and perfected. ‘Grow in 
grace and in the knowledge’ of Him, whom to know 
ever so imperfectly is eternal life, whom to know a 
little better is the true progress for men, whom to 
know more and more fully is the growth and gladness 
and glory of the heavens. Look at this shadowy figure 
that looks out on us here, and listen to his far-off 
voice ‘exhorting us all that with purpose of heart we 
should cleave unto the Lord.’ 

II. But there is another and, as some might think, 
opposite lesson to be gathered from this outline 
sketch, namely, The welcome which we should be ready 
to give to new thoughts and ways. 

It is evidently meant that we should note Mnason’s 
position in the Church as significant in regard to his 
hospitable reception of the Apostle. Wecan fancy how 
the little knot of ‘original disciples’ would be apt to 
value themselves on their position, especially as time 
went on, and their ranks were thinned. They would be 
tempted to suppose that they must needs understand 
the Master's meaning a great deal better than those who 
had never known Christ after the flesh; and no doubt 
they would be inclined to share in the suspicion with 
which the thorough-going Jewish party in the Church 
regarded this Paul, who had never seen the Lord. It 


236 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xxt, — 


would have been very natural for this good old man to 
have said, ‘I do not like these new-fangled ways. There 
was nothing of this sort in my younger days. Is it 
not likely that we, who were at the beginning of the 
Gospel, should understand the Gospel and the Church’s 
work without this new man coming to set us right? 
I am too old to go in with these changes.’ All the 
more honourable is it that he should have been ready 
with an open house to shelter the great champion 
of the Gentile Churches; and, as we may reasonably 
believe, with an open heart to welcome his teaching. 
Depend on it, it was not every ‘old disciple’ that would 
have done as much. 

Now does not this flexibility of mind and openness 
of nature to welcome new ways of work, when united 
with the persistent constancy in his old creed, make 
an admirable combination? It is one rare enough at 
any age, but especially in elderly men. We are always 
disposed to rend apart what ought never to be separated, 
the inflexible adherence to a fixed centre of belief, and 
the freest ranging around the whole changing cireum- 
ference. The man of strong convictions is apt to grip 
every trifle of practice and every unimportant bit of 
his creed with the same tenacity with which he holds 
its vital heart, and to take obstinacy for firmness, 
and dogged self-will for faithfulness to truth. The 
man who welcomes new light, and reaches forward 
to greet new ways, is apt to delight in having much 
fluid that ought to be fixed, and to value himself on 
a ‘liberality’ which simply means that he has no 
central truth and no rooted convictions. And as men 
grow older they stiffen more and more, and have to 
leave the new work for new hands, and the new 
thoughts for new brains. That is all in the order of 





v. 16] AN OLD DISCIPLE 237 


nature, but so much the finer is it when we do see 
old Christian men who join to their firm grip of the 
old Gospel the power of welcoming, and at least bidding 
God-speed to, new thoughts and new workers and 
new ways of work. 

The union of these two characteristics should be 
consciously aimed at by us all. Hold unchanging, with 
a grasp that nothing can relax, by Christ our life 
and our all; but with that tenacity of mind, try to 
cultivate flexibility too. Love the old, but be ready 
to welcome the new. Do not invest your own or 
other people’s habits of thought or forms of work 
with the same sanctity which belongs to the central 
truths of our salvation; do not let the willingness to 
entertain new light lead you to tolerate any changes 
there. It is hard to blend the two virtues together, 
but they are meant to be complements, not opposites, 
to each other. The fluttering leaves and bending 
branches need a firm stem and deep roots. The firm 
stem looks noblest in its unmoved strength when it 
is contrasted with a cloud of light foliage dancing in 
the wind. Try to imitate the persistency and the 
open mind of that ‘old disciple’ who was so ready to 
welcome and entertain the Apostle of the Gentile 
Churches. 

III. But there is still another lesson which, I think, 
this portrait may suggest, and that is, the beauty that 
may dwell in an obscure life. 

There is nothing to be said about this old man but that 
he was a disciple. He had done no great thing for his 
Lord. No teacher or preacher was he. Noeloquence or 
genius was in him. No great heroic deed or piece of 
saintly endurance is to be recorded of him, but only 
this, that he had loved and followed Christ all his days, 





238 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cm xxt. 


And is not that record enough? It is his blessed fate 
to live for ever in the world’s memory, with only that 
one word attached to his name—a disciple. 

The world may remember very little about us a year 
after we are gone. No thought, no deed may be con- 
nected with our names but in some narrow circle of 
loving hearts. There may be no place for us in any 
record written with a man’s pen. But what does that 
matter, if our names, dear friends, are written in the 
Lamb’s Book of Life, with this for sole epitaph, ‘a 
disciple’? That single phrase is the noblest summary 
of alife. A thinker? a hero? a great man? a million- 
aire? No,a ‘disciple.’ That says all. May it be your 
epitaph and mine! 

What Mnason could do he did. It was not his vocation 
to go into the ‘regions beyond, like Paul; te guide the 
Church, like James; to put his remembrances of his 
Master in a book, like Matthew; to die for Jesus, like 
Stephen. But he could open his house for Paul and 
his company, and so take his share in their work. 
‘He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet 
shall receive a prophet’s reward. He that with under- 
standing and sympathy welcomes and sustains the 
prophet, shows thereby that he stands on the same 
spiritual level, and has the makings of a prophet in 
him, though he want the intellectual force and may 
never open his lips to speak the burden of the Lord. 
Therefore he shall be one in reward as he is in spirit. 
The old law in Israel is the law for the warfare of 
Christ’s soldiers. ‘As his part is that goeth down to 
the battle, so shall his part be that abideth by the 
stuff: they shall part alike.’ The men in the rear 
who guard the camp and keep the communications 
open, may deserve honours, and crosses, and prize- 


v. 16] AN OLD DISCIPLE 239 


money as much as their comrades who led the charge 
that cut through the enemy’s line and scattered their 
ranks. It does not matter, so far as the real spiritual 
worth of the act is concerned, what we do, but only 
why we doit. All deeds are the same which are done 
from the same motive and with the same devotion; 
and He who judges, not by our outward actions but 
by the springs from which they come, will at last 
bracket together as equals many who were widely 
separated here in the form of their service and the 
apparent magnitude of their work. 

‘She hath done what she could.’ Her power deter- 
mined the measure and the manner of her work. One 
precious thing she had, and only one, and she broke her 
one rich possession that she might pour the fragrant 
oil over His feet. Therefore her useless deed of utter 
love and uncalculating self-sacrifice was crowned 
by praise from His lips whose praise is our highest 
honour, and the world is still ‘filled with the odour 
of the ointment.’ 

So this old disciple’s hospitality is strangely immortal, 
and the record of it reminds us that the smallest service 
done for Jesus is remembered and treasured by Him. 
Men have spent their lives to win a line in the world’s 
chronicles which are written on sand, and have broken 
their hearts because they failed; and this passing act 
of one obscure Christian, in sheltering a little company 
of travel-stained wayfarers, has made his name a 
possession for ever. ‘Seekest thou great things for 
thyself? seek them not’; but let us fill our little 
corners, doing our unnoticed work for love of our 
Lord, careless about man’s remembrance or praise, 
because sure of Christ’s, whose praise is the only fame, 
-whose remembrance is the highest reward. ‘God is 


240 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xx1 


not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of 
love.’ 


PAUL IN THE TEMPLE 


* And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, 
when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on 
him, 28. Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men 
every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought 
Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. 29. (For they had 
seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed 
that Paul had brought into the temple.) 30. And all the city was moved, and the 
people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and 
forthwith the doors were shut. 31. And as they went about to kill him, tidings 
came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. 
32. Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and 
when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. 33. Then 
che chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with 
two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done, 34. And some 
cried one thing, some another, among the multitude: and when he could not know 
the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. 
35. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers 
for the violence of the people. 36. For the multitude of the people followed after, 
crying, Away withhim. 37. And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said 
unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak 
Greek? 38, Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an up- 
roar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? 
39. But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a 
citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. — 
ACTS xxi. 27-39. 


THE stronger a man’s faith, the greater will and should 
be his disposition to conciliate. Paul may seem to have 
stretched consideration for weak brethren to its utmost, 
when he consented to the proposal of the Jerusalem 
elders to join in performing the vow of a Nazarite, and 
to appear in the Temple for that purpose. But he was 
quite consistent in so doing; for it was not Jewish 
ceremonial to which he objected, but the insisting on it 
as necessary. For himself, he lived as a Jew, except 
in his freedom of intercourse with Gentiles. No doubt 
he knew that the death-warrant of Jewish ceremonial 
had been signed, but he could leave it to time to carry 
out the sentence. The one thing which he was resolved 


vs. 27-39] PAUL IN THE TEMPLE 241 


should not be was its imposition on Gentile Christians. 
Their road to Jesus was not through Temple or syna- 
gogue. As for Jewish Christians, let them keep to 
the ritual if they chose. The conciliatory plan recom- 
mended by the elders, though perfectly consistent with 
Paul’s views and successful with the Jewish Christians, 
roused non-Christian Jews as might have been ex- 
pected. 

This incident brings out very strikingly the part 
played by each of the two factors in carrying out God’s 
purposes for Paul. They are unconscious instruments, 
and co-operation is the last thing dreamed of on either 
side; but Jew and Roman together work out a design 
of which they had not a glimpse. 

I. Note the charge against Paul. The ‘Jews from 
Asia’ knew him by sight, as they had seen him in 
Ephesus and elsewhere; and possibly some of them 
had been fellow-passengers with him from Miletus. 
No wonder that they construed his presence in the 
Temple into an insult toit. If Luther or John Knox 
had appeared in St. Peter’s, he would not have been 
thought to have come as a worshipper. Paul’s teach- 
ing may very naturally have created the impression 
in hot-tempered partisans, who could not draw dis- 
tinctions, that he was the enemy of Temple and 
sacrifice. i 

It has always been the vice of religious controversy 
to treat inferences from heretical teaching, which 
appear plain to the critics, as if they were articles of 
the heretic’s belief. These Jewish zealots practised 
avery common method when they fathered on Paul 
all which they supposed to be involved in his position. 
Their charges against him are partly flat lies, partly 
conclusions drawn from misapprehension of his position. 

VOL. II. Q 





242 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xx1. 


partly exaggeration, and partly hasty assumptions. 
He had never said a word which could be construed as 
‘against the people. He had indeed preached that 
the law was not for Gentiles, and was not the perfect 
revelation which brought salvation, and he had pointed 
to Jesus as in Himself realising all that the Temple 
shadowed ; but such teaching was not ‘against’ either, 
but rather for both, as setting both in their true 
relation to the whole process of revelation. He had 
not brought ‘Greeks’ into the Temple, not even the 
one Greek whom malice multiplied into many. When 
passion is roused, exaggerations and assumptions soon 
become definite assertions. The charges are a complete 
object-lesson in the baser arts of religious (!) partisans; 
and they have been but too faithfully reproduced in 
allages. Did Paul remember how he had been ‘con- 
senting’ to the death of Stephen on the very same 
charges? How far he has travelled since that day! 

II. Note the immediately kindled flame of popular 
bigotry. The always inflammable population of 
Jerusalem was more than usually excitable at the 
times of the Feasts, when it was largely increased by 
zealous worshippers from a distance. Noble teaching 
would have left the mob as stolid as it found them; 
but an appeal to the narrow prejudices which they 
thought were religion was a spark in gunpowder, and 
an explosion was immediate. It is always easier to 
rouse men to fight for their ‘religion’ than to live by 
it. Jehu was proud of what he calls his ‘zeal for the 
Lord,’ which was really only ferocity with a mask on. 
The yelling crowd did not stop to have the charges 
proved. That they were made was enough. In Scot- 
land people used to talk of ‘Jeddart justice, which 
consisted in hanging a man first, and trying him 


vs. 27-39] PAUL IN THE TEMPLE 243 


leisurely afterwards. It was usually substantially 
just when applied to moss-troopers, but does not do 
so well when administered to Apostles. 

Notice the carefulness to save the Temple from pollu- 
tion, which is shown by the furious crowds dragging 
Paul outside before they kill him. They were not 
afraid to commit murder, but they were horror-struck 
at the thought of a breach of ceremonial etiquette. 
Of course! for when religion is conceived of as mainly 
a matter of outward observances, sin is reduced to a 
breach of these. Weare all tempted to shift the centre 
of gravity in our religion, and to make too much of. 
ritual etiquette. Kill Paul if you will, but get him 
outside the sacred precincts first. The priests shut 
the doors to make sure that there should be no pro- 
fanation, and stopped inside the Temple, well pleased 
that murder should go on at its threshold. They had 
better have rescued the victim. Time was when the 
altar was a sanctuary for the criminal who could grasp 
its horns, but now its ministers wink at bloodshed 
with secret approval. Paul could easily have been 
- killed in the crowd, and no responsibility for his death 
have clung to any single hand. No doubt that was 
the cowardly calculation which they made, and they 
were well on the way to carry it out when the other 
factor comes into operation. 

III. Note the source of deliverance. The Roman 
garrison was posted in the fortress of Antonia, which 
commanded the Temple from a higher level at the 
north-west angle of the enclosure. Tidings ‘came up’ 
to the officer in command, Claudius Lysias by name 
(Acts xxiii. 26), that all Jerusalem was in confusion. 
With disciplined promptitude he turned out a detach- 
ment and ‘ran down upon them. The contrast 





244 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ea. xx1. 


between the quiet power of the legionaries and the 
noisy feebleness of the mob is striking. The best 
qualities of Roman sway are seen in this tribune’s 
unhesitating action, before which the excited mob 
cowers in fright. They ‘left beating of Paul, as 
knowing that a heavier hand would fall on them for 
rioting. With swift decision Lysias acts first and 
talks afterwards, securing the man who was plainly 
the centre of disturbance, and then having got him 
fast with two chains on him, inquiring who he was, 
and what he had been doing. 

Then the crowd breaks loose again in noisy and 
contradictory explanations, all at the top of their 
voices, and each drowning the other. Clearly the 
bulk of them could not answer either of Lysias’ ques- 
tions, though they could all bellow ‘ Away with him!’ 
till their throats were sore. It is a perfect picture of 
a mob, which is always ferocious and volubly explana- 
tory in proportion to its ignorance. One man kept 
his head in the hubbub, and that was Lysias, who 
determined to hold his prisoner till he did know some- 
thing about him. So he ordered him to be taken up 
into the castle; and as the crowd saw their prey 
escaping they made one last fierce rush, and almost 
swept away the soldiers, who had to pick Paul up and 
carry him. Once on the stairs leading to the castle 
they were clear of the crowd, which could only send a 
roar of baffled rage after them, and to this the stolid 
legionaries were as deaf as were their own helmets. _ 

The part here played by the Roman authority is 
that which it performs throughout the Acts. It shields 
infant Christianity from Jewish assailants, like the 
wolf which, according to legend, suckled Romulus. 
The good and the bad features of Roman rule were 


vs. 27-39] PAUL IN THE TEMPLE 245 


both valuable for that purpose. Its contempt for ideas, 
and above all for speculative differences in a religion 
which it regarded as a hurtful superstition, its un- 
sympathetic incapacity for understanding its subject 
nations, its military discipline, its justice, which though 
often tainted was yet better than the partisan violence 
which it coerced, all helped to make it the defender 
of the first Christians. Strange that Rome should 
shelter and Jerusalem persecute! 

Mark, too, how blindly men fulfil God’s purposes. 
The two bitter antagonists, Jew and Roman, seem to 
themselves to be working in direct opposition; but 
God is using them both to carry out His design. Paul 
has to be got to Rome, and these two forces are com- 
bined by a wisdom beyond their ken, to carry him 
thither. Two cogged wheels turning in opposite 
directions fit into each other, and grind out a resultant 
motion, different from either of theirs. These soldiers 
and that mob were like pawns on a chessboard, 
ignorant of the intentions of the hand which moves 
them. 

IV. Note the calm courage of Paul. He too had kept 
his head, and though bruised and hustled, and having 
but a minute or two beforehand looked death in the 
face, he is ready to seize the opportunity to speak a 
word for his Master. Observe the quiet courtesy of 
his address, and his calm remembrance of the tribune’s 
right to prevent his speaking. There is nothing more 
striking in Paul’s character than his self-command and 
composure in all circumstances. This ship could rise 
to any wave, and ride in any storm. It was not by 
virtue of happy temperament but of a fixed faith 
that his heart and mind were kept in perfect peace. 
It is not easy to disturb a man who counts not his life 





246 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xxm. 


dear if only he may complete his course. So these two 
men front each other, and it is hard to tell which has 
the quieter pulse and the steadier hand. The same 
sources of tranquil self-control and calm superiority 
to fortune which stood Paul in such good stead are 
open to us. If God is our rock and our high tower we 
shall not be moved. 

The tribune had for some unknown reason settled in 
his mind that the Apostle was a well-known ‘ Egyptian, 
who had headed a band of ‘Sicarii’ or ‘dagger-men,’ 
of whose bloody doings Josephus tells us. How the 
Jews should have been trying to murder such a man 
Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when 
he heard the courteous, respectful Greek speech of the 
Apostle he saw at once that he had got no uncultured 
ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul’s request 
and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has 
been thought an improbability. But strong men 
recognise each other, and the brave Roman was struck 
with something in the tone and bearing of the brave 
Jew which made him instinctively sure that no harm 
would come of the permission. There ought to be that 
in the demeanour of a Christian which is as a testi- 
monial of character for him, and sways observers to 
favourable constructions. 


PAUL ON HIS OWN CONVERSION 


‘And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto ~ 


Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round 
about me. 7, And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou Me? 8. And I answered, Who art Thou, Lord? And 
He said unto me, lam Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. 9. And they 
that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the 
voice of Him that spake to me. 10. And Isaid, What shallI do, Lord? And the 
Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thes 
of all things which are appointed for thee todo, 11, And when I could not see for 


vs. 6-16] PAUL’S CONVERSION 247 


the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came 
into Damascus. 12. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having 
a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, 13. Came unto me, and stood, 
and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked 
up upon him. 14. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou 
shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of 
His mouth. 15. For thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou hast 
seen and heard. 16. And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and 
wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’—ActTs xxii. 6-16. 


WE follow Paul’s example when we put Jesus’ appear- 
ance to him from heaven in a line with His appearances 
to the disciples on earth. ‘Last of all, He appeared to 
me also. But it does not follow that the appearances 
are all of the same kind, or that Paul thought that 
they were. They were all equally real, equally ‘ objec- 
tive,’ equally valid proofs of Jesus’ risen life. On two 
critical occasions Paul told the story of Jesus’ appear- 
ance as his best ‘Apologia.’ ‘I saw and heard Him, 
and that revolutionised my life, and made me what I 
am. The two accounts are varied, as the hearers were, 
but the differenves are easily reconciled, and the broad 
facts are the same in both versions, and in Luke’s 
rendering in chapter ix. 

A favourite theory in some quarters is that Paul’s 
conversion was not sudden, but that misgivings had 
been working in him ever since Stephen's death. 
Surely that view is clean against facts. Persecuting 
its adherents to the death is a strange result of dawn- 
ing belief in ‘this way.’ Paul may be supposed to have 
known his state of mind as well as a critic nineteen 
centuries off does, and he had no doubt that he set 
out from Jerusalem a bitter hater of the convicted 
impostor Jesus, and stumbled into Damascus a con- 
vinced disciple because he had seen and heard Him. 
That is his account of the matter, which would not 
have been meddled with if the meddlers had not taken 
offence at ‘the supernatural element.’ We note the 


ee 
248 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on. xxu. 


emphasis which Paul puts on the suddenness of the 
appearance, implying that the light burst all in a 
moment. A little bit of personal reminiscence comes 
up in his specifying the time as ‘about noon, the 
brightest hour. He remembers how the light outblazed 
even the blinding brilliance of a Syrian noontide. He 
insists too on the fact that his senses were addressed, 
both eye and ear. He saw the glory of that light, and 
heard the voice. He does not say here that he saw 
Jesus, but that he did so is clear from Ananias’ words, 
‘to see the Righteous One’ (ver. 14), and from 1 Cor- 
inthians xv. 8. Further, he makes it very emphatic 
that the vision was certified as no morbid fancy of his 
own, but yet was marked as meant for him only, by 
the double fact that his companions did share in it, 
but only in part. They did see the light, but not ‘the 
Righteous One’; they did hear the sound of the voice, 
but not so as to know what it said. The difference 
between merely hearing a noise and discerning the 
sense of the words is probably marked by the con- 
struction in the Greek, and is certainly to be under- 
stood. 

The blaze struck all the company to the ground 
(Acts xxvi. 14). Prone on the earth, and probably with 
closed eyes, their leader heard his own name twice 
sounded, with appeal, authority, and love in the tones. 
The startling question which followed not only pierced 
conscience, and called for a reasonable vindication of 
his action, but flashed a new light on it as being per- 
secution which struck at this unknown heavenly 
speaker. So the first thought in Saul’s mind is not 
about himself or his doings but about the identity of 
that Speaker. Awe, if not actual worship, is expressed 
in addressing Him as Lord. Wonder, with perhaps 


vs. 6-16] PAUL'S CONVERSION 249 


some foreboding of what the answer would be, is 
audible in the question, ‘Who art Thou?’ Whocan 
imagine the shock of the answer to Saul’s mind? Then 
the man whom he had thought of as a vile apostate, 
justly crucified and not risen as his dupes dreamed, 
lived in heaven, knew him, Saul, and all that he had 
been doing, was ‘apparelled in celestial light,’ and yet 
in heavenly glory was so closely identified with these 
poor people whom he had been hunting to death that 
to strike them was to hurt Him! A bombshell had 
burst, shattering the foundation of his fortifications. 
A deluge had swept away the ground on which he had 
stood. His whole life was revolutionised. Its most 
solid elements were dissolved into vapour, and what he 
had thought misty nonsense was now the solid thing. 
To find a ‘why’ for his persecuting was impossible, 
unless he had said (what in effect he did say), ‘I did 
it ignorantly.. When a man has a glimpse of Jesus 
exalted to heaven, and is summoned by Him to givea 
reason for his life of alienation, that life looks very 
different from what it did, when seen by dimmer light. 
Clothes are passable by candle-light that look very 
shabby in sunshine. When Jesus comes to us, His first 
work is to set us to judge our past, and no man can 
muster up respectable answers to His question, ‘Why ?’ 
for all sin is unreasonable, and nothing but obedience 
to Him can vindicate itself in His sight. 

Saul threw down his armsatonce. His characteristic 
impetuosity and eagerness to carry out his convictions 
impelled him to a surrender as complete as his opposi- 
tion. The test of true belief in the ascended Jesus is to 
submit the will to Him, to be chiefly desirous of knowing 
His will, and ready to do it. ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’ 
should be followed by ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ 





250 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xx. 


Blind Saul, led by the hand into the city which he 
had expected to enter so differently, saw better than 
ever before. ‘The glory of that light’ blinds us to 
things seen, but makes us able to see afar off the only 
realities, the things unseen. Speaking to Jews, as 
here, Paul described Ananias as a devout adherent of 
the law, in order to conciliate them and to suggest his 
great principle that a Christian was not an apostate 
but a complete Jew. To Agrippa he drops all refer- 
ence to Ananias as irrelevant, and throws together 
the words on the road and the commission received 
through Ananias as equally Christ’s voice. Here he 
lays stress on his agency in restoring sight, and on his 
message as including two points—that it was ‘the God 
of our fathers’ who had ‘appointed’ the vision, and 
that the purpose of the vision was to make Saul a 
witness to all men. The bearing of this on the con- 
ciliatory aim of the discourse is plain. We note also 
the precedence given in the statement of the particulars 
of the vision to ‘knowing his will’—that was the end 
for which the light and the voice were given. Observe 
too how the twofold evidence of sense is signalised, 
both in the reference to seeing the Righteous One and 
to hearing His voice and in the commission to witness 
what Saul had seen and heard. The personal know- 
ledge of Jesus, however attained, constitutes the quali- 
fication and the obligation to be His witness. And the 
convincing testimony is when we can say, as we all can 
say if we are Christ's, ‘That which we have heard, that 
which we have seen with our eyes, that ... declare 
we unto you.’ 


ROME PROTECTS PAUL 


And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while 1 
prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance; 18. And saw Him saying unto me, Make 
haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testi- 
mony concerning Me. 19. And I said, Lord, they know that E imprisoned and beat 
in every synagogue them that believed on Thee: 20. And when the blood of Thy 
martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, 
and kept the raiment of them that slew him. 21. And He said unto me, Depart: 
for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 22. And they gave him audience 
unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow 
from the earth : for it is not fit that he should live. 23. And as they cried out, and 
cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24. The chief captain com- 
manded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined 
by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. 25. And 
as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it 
lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26, When 
the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed 
what thou doest: for this manisa Roman. 27. Then the chief captain came, and 
said, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28. And the chief captain answered, 
With a great sum obtained I thisfreedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 
29. Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: 
and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and 
because he had bound him. 30. On the morrow, because he would have known the 
certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, 
and commanded the chief priests and all their council toappear,and brought Paul 
down, and set him before them.’—ActTS xxii. 17-30. 


THE threatened storm soon burst on Paulin Jerusalem. 
On the third day after his arrival he began the cere- 
monial recommended by the elders to prove his adher- 
ence to the law. Before the seven days during which 
it lasted were over the riot broke out, and he was 
saved from death only by the military tribune hurrying 
down to the Temple and dragging him from the mob. 
The tribune’s only care was to stamp out a riot, and 
whether the victim was ‘that Egyptian’ or not, to pre- 
vent his being murdered. He knew nothing, and cared 
as little, about the grounds of the tumult, but he was 
not going to let a crowd of turbulent Jews take the 
law into their own hands, and flout the majesty of 
Roman justice. So he lets the nearly murdered man say 
his say and keeps the mob off him. It was a strange 


sceue—below, the howling zealots; above, on the stairs, 
251 





252 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on. xxm. 


the Christian apologist, guarded from his countrymen 
by a detachment of legionaries; and the assembly pre- 
sided over by a Roman tribune. 

It is very characteristic of Paul that he thought that 
his own conversion was the best argument that he could 
use with his fellow-Israelites. So he tells his story, 
and this section strikes into his speech at the point 
where he is coming to very thin ice indeed, and is about 
to vindicate his work among the Gentiles by declaring 
that it was done in obedience to a command from 
heaven. We need not discuss the date of the trance, 
whether it was in his first visit to Jerusalem after his 
conversion or, as Ramsay strongly argues, is to be put 
at the visit mentioned in Acts xi. 30 and xii. 25, 

We note the delicate, conciliatory skill with which 
he brings out that his conversion had not made him less 
a devout worshipper in the Temple, by specifying it as 
the scene of the trance, and prayer as his occupation 
then. The mention of the Temple also invested the 
vision with sanctity. 

Very noticeable too is the avoidance of the name of 
Jesus, which would have stirred passion in the crowd. 
We may also observe that the first words of our Lord, 
as given by Paul, did not tell him whither he was to 
go, but simply bade him leave Jerusalem. The full 
announcement of the mission to the Gentiles was de- 
layed both by Jesus to Paul and by Paul to his brethren. 
He was to ‘get quickly out of Jerusalem’; that was 
tragic enough. He was to give up working for his own 
people, whom he loved so well. And the reason was 
their rooted incredulity and their hatred of him. Other 
preachers might do something with them, but Paul 
could not. ‘They will not receive testimony of thee.’ 

But the Apostle’s heart clung to his nation, and not 


vs.17-30] ROME PROTECTS PAUL ~— 253 


even his Lord’s command was accepted without re- 
monstrance. His patriotism led him to the verge of 
disobedience, and encouraged him to put in his ‘ But, 
Lord, with boldness that was all but presumption. 
He ventures to suggest a reason why the Jews would, 
as he thinks, receive his testimony. They knew what 
he had been, and they must bethink themselves that 
there must be something real and mighty in the power 
which had turned his whole way of thinking and living 
right round, and made him love all that he had hated, 
and count all that he had prized ‘but dung.’ Theremon- 
strance is like Moses’, like Jeremiah’s, like that of many 
a Christian set to work that goes against the grain, 
and called to relinquish what he would fain do, and do 
what he would rather leave undone. 

But Jesus does not take His servants’ remonstrances 
amiss, if only they will make them frankly to Him, and 
not keep muttering them under their breath to them- 
selves. Let us say all that is in our hearts. He will 
listen, and clear away hesitations, and show us our 
path, and make us willing to walk init. Jesus did not 
discuss the matter with Paul, but reiterated the com- 
mand, and made it more pointed and clear; and then 
Paul stopped objecting and yielded his will, as we 
should do. ‘When he would not be persuaded, we 
ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. The 
Apostle had kept from the obnoxious word as long as 
he could, but it had to come, and he tells the enraged 
listeners at last, without circumlocution, that he is the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, that Jesus has made him so 
against his will, and that therefore he must do the 
work appointed him, though his heart-strings crack 
with seeming to be cold to Israel. 

The burst of fury, expressed in gestures which any- 





254 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxn. 


body who has ever seen two Easterns quarrelling can 
understand, looks fitter for a madhouse than an audi- 
ence of men in their senses. They yelled and tore their 
garments (and their beards, no doubt), and clutched 
handfuls of dust and tossed it in the air, like Shimei 
cursing David. What a picture of frenzied hate! And 
what was it all for? Because Gentiles were to be 
allowed to share in Israel’s privileges. And what were 
the privileges which they thus jealously monopolised ? 
The favour and protection of the God who, as their own 
prophets had taught them, was the God of the whole 
earth, and revealed Him to Israel that Israel might 
reveal Him to the world. 

The less they entered into the true possession of their 
heritage, the more savagely they resented sharing it 
with the nations. The more their prerogative became 
a mere outward thing, the more they snarled at any 
one who proposed to participate in it. To seek to keep 
religious blessings to one’s self is a conclusive proof 
that they are not really possessed. If we have them 
we shall long to impart them. Formal religionists 
always dislike missionary enterprise. 

The tribune no doubt had been standing silently 
watching, in his strong, contemptuous Roman way, 
the paroxysm of rage sweeping over his troublesome 
charge. Of course he did not understand a word that 
the culprit had been saying, and could not make out 
what had produced the outburst. He felt that there 
was something here that he had not fathomed, and 
that he must get to the bottom of. It was useless to 
lay hold of any of these shrieking maniacs and try to 
get a reasonable word out of them. So he determined 
to see what he could make of the orator, who had 
already astonished him by traces of superior education, 


vs.17-30) ROME PROTECTS PAUL 255 


and was evidently no mere vulgar firebrand or sedition- 
monger. He might have tried gentler means of extract- 
ing the truth than scourging, but that process of 
‘examination, as it is flatteringly called, was common, 
and has not been antiquated for so many centuries 
that we need wonder at this Roman officer using it. 

Paul submitted, and was already tied up to some 
whipping-post, in an attitude which would expose his 
back to the lash, when he quietly dropped, to the in- 
ferior officer detailed to superintend the flogging, the 
question which fell like a bombshell. Possibly the 
Apostle had not known what the soldiers were ordered 
to do with him till he was tied up. We cannot tell why 
he did not plead his citizenship sooner. But we may 
remember that at Philippi he did not plead it at all till 
after the scourging. Why he delayed so long in the 
present instance, and why he at last spoke the magic 
words, ‘I am a Roman citizen, we cannot say. But 
we may gather the two lessons that Christ’s servants 
are often wise in submitting silently to wrongs, and 
that they are within their rights in availing themselves 
of legal defences against illegal treatment. Whether 
silence or protest is the more expedient must be 
determined in each case by conscience, guided by the 
sought-for guidance of the enlightening Spirit. The 
determining consideration should be, Which course 
will best glorify my Master ? 

The information brought the tribune in haste to the 
place where the Apostle was still tied up. The tables 
were turned indeed. His brief answer, ‘ Yea, was 
accepted at once, for to claim the sacred name of 
- Roman falsely would have been too dangerous, and no 
doubt Paul’s bearing impressed the tribune with a con- 
viction of his truthfulness. A hint of contempt and 


on 


256 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx.xxn. 


doubt lies in his remark that he had paid dearly for the 
franchise, which remark implies, ‘Where did a poor 
man like you get the money then?’ A shameful trade 
in selling citizens’ rights was carried on in the degraded 
days of the Empire by underlings at court, and no doubt 
the tribune had procured his citizenship in that way. 
Paul’s answer explains that he was born free, and so 
was above his questioner. 

That discovery put an end to all thought of scourg- 
ing. Paul was at once liberated, and the tribune, terri- 
fied that he might be reported, seeks to repair his error 
and changes his tactics, retaining Paul for safety in the 
castle, and summoning the Sanhedrim, to try to find out 
more of this strange affair through them. The great 
council of the nation had sunk low indeed when it had 
to obey the call of a Roman soldier. 

Thus once more, as so continually in the Acts, Rome 
is friendly to the Christian teachers and saves them 
from Jewish fury. To point out that early protection 
and benevolent sufferance is one purpose of the whole 
book. The days of Roman persecution had not yet 
come. The Empire was favourable to Christianity, not 
only because its officials were too proud to take interest 
in petty squabbles between two sects of Jews about 
their absurd superstitions, but reasons of political wis- 
dom combined with supercilious indifference to bring 
about this attitude. 

The strong hand of Rome, too, if it crushed national 
independence, also suppressed violence, kept men from 
flying at each other's throats, spread peace over wide 
lands, and made the journeyings of Paul and the plant- 
ing of the early Christian Churches possible. It was 
a God-appointed, though an imperfect, and in some 
aspects, mischievous unity, and prepared the way for 


~~ ™ 


vs.17-30]) CHRIST'S WITNESSES 257 


that higher form of unity realised in the Church which 
finally shattered the coarser Empire which had at first 
sheltered it. The Czesars were doing God’s work when 
they were following their own lust of empire. They 
were yoked to Christ’s chariot, though unwitting and 
unwilling. To them, as truly as to Cyrus, might the 
divine voice have said, ‘I girded thee, though thou hast 
not known Me.’ 


CHRIST'S WITNESSES 


‘And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, 
Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also 
at Rome.’—ActTs xxiii. 11. 


It had long been Paul’s ambition to ‘ preach the Gospel 
to you that are at Rome also.’ His settled policy, as 
shown by this Book of the Acts, was to fly at the head, 
to attack the great centres of population. We trace 
him from Antioch to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, 
Corinth, Ephesus; and of course Rome was the goal, 
where a blow struck at the heart might reverberate 
through the empire. So he had planned for it, and 
prayed about it, and thought about it, and spoken 
about it. But his wish was accomplished, as our 
prayers and purposes so often are, in a manner very 
strange to him. A popular riot in Jerusalem, a half- 
friendly arrest by the contemptuous impartiality of a 
Roman officer, a final rejection by the Sanhedrim, a 
prison in Czsarea, an appeal to Cesar, a weary 
voyage, a shipwreck: this was the chain of circum- 
stances which fulfilled his desire, and brought him to 
the imperial city. 

My text comes at the crisis of his fate. He has just 
been rejected by his people, and for the moment is in 

VOL. II. R 





258 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xxu1. 


safety in the castle under the charge of the Roman 
garrison. One can fancy how, as he lay there in the 
barrack that night, he felt that he had come to a 
turning-point; and the thoughts were busy in his 
mind, ‘Is this for life or for death? Am I to do any 
more work for Christ, or am I silenced for ever?’ 
—‘And the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good 
cheer, Paul!’ The divine message assured him that he 
should live; it testified of Christ’s approbation of his 
past, and promised him that, in recompense for that 
past, he should have wider work to do. So he passed 
to the unknown future quietly; and went on his way 
with the Master by his side. 

Now, dear friends, it seems to me that in these great 
words there lie lessons applying to all Christian people 
as truly, though in different fashion, as they did to the 
Apostle, and having an especial bearing on that great 
enterprise of Christian missions, with which I would 
connect them in this sermon. I desire, then, to draw 
out the lessons which seem to me to lie under the 
surface of this great promise. 

I. To live ought to be, for a Christian, to witness. 

The promise in form is a promise of continued 
testimony-bearing; in its substance, one might say, it 
is a promise of continued life. Paul is cheered, not by 
being told that the wrath of the enemy will launch 
itself at his head in vain, and that he will bear 
a charmed life through it all, but by being told 
that there is work for him to do yet. That is the 
shape in which the promise of life is held out to 
him. So it always ought to be; a Christian man’s 
life ought to be one continuous witnessing for that 
Lord Christ who stood by the Apostle in the castle at 
Jerusalem. 


v.11] CHRIST’S WITNESSES 259 


Let me just urge this upon you for a few moments. 
It seems to me that to raise up witnesses for Himself 
is, in one aspect, the very purpose of all Christ’s work. 
You and I, dear brethren, if we have any living hold of 
that Lord, have received Him into our hearts, not only 
in order that for ourselves we may rejoice in Him, but 
in order that, for ourselves rejoicing in Him, we may 
‘show forth the virtues of Him who hath called us out 
of darkness into His marvellous light.’ There is no 
creature so great as that he is not regarded as a means 
to a further end; and there is no creature so small but 
that he has the right to claim happiness and blessing 
from the Hand that made him. Jesus Christ has 
drawn us to Himself, that we may know the sweetness 
of His presence, the cleansing of His blood, the stirring 
and impulse of His indwelling life in us for our own 
joy and our own completion, but also that we may 
be His witnesses and weapons, according to that great 
word: ‘This people have I formed for Myself. They 
shall shew forth My praise.’ 

God has ‘shined into our hearts in order that we 
may give, reflecting the beams that fall upon them, 
‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in 
the face of Jesus Christ... Brother and sister, if you 
have the Christian life in your souls, one purpose 
of your possessing it is that you may bear witness 
for Him. 

Again, such witness-bearing is the result of all true, 
deep, Christian life. All life longs to manifest itself in 
action. Every conviction that a man has seeks for 
utterance; especially so do the beliefs that go deepest 
and touch the moral and spiritual nature and relation- 
ships of a man. He that perceives them is thereby 
impelled to desire to utter them. There can be no 


260 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xxm. 


real, deep possession of that great truth of the Gospel 
which we profess to be the foundation of our personal 
lives, unless we have felt the impulse to spread the 
name and to declare the sweetness of the Lord. The 
very same impulse that makes the loving heart carve 
the beloved name on the smooth rind of the tree 
makes it sweet to one who is in real touch and living 
fellowship with Jesus Christ to speak about Him. O 
brother! there is a very sharp test for us. I know that 
there are hundreds of professing Christians—decent, 
respectable sort of people, with a tepid, average 
amount of Christian faith and principle in them—who 
never felt that overmastering desire, ‘I must let this 
thing out through my lips. Why? Why do they not 
feel it? Because their own possession of Christ is so 
superficial and partial. Jeremiah’s experience will be 
repeated where there is vigorous Christian life: ‘Thy 
word shut up in my bones was like a fire’—that burned 
itself through all the mass that was laid upon it, and 
ate its way victoriously into the light—‘and I was 
weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.’ Christian 
men and women, do you know anything of that oer- 
mastering impulse? If you do not, look to the depth 
and reality of your Christian profession. 

Again, this witnessing is the condition of all strong 
life. If you keep nipping the buds off a plant you 
will kill it. If you never say a word to a human 
soul about your Christianity, your Christianity will 
tend to evaporate. Action confirms and strengthens 
convictions; speech deepens conviction; and although 
it is possible for any one—and some of us ministers are 
in great danger of making the possibility a reality—to 
talk away his religion, for one of us who loses it by 
speaking too much about it, there are twenty that 


v. 11] CHRIST’S WITNESSES 261 


damage it by speaking too little. Shut it up, and it 
will be like some wild creature put into a cellar, fast 
locked and unventilated; when you open the door it 
will be dead. Shut it up, as so many of our average 
Christian professors and members of our congrega- 
tions and churches do, and when you come to take it 
out, it will be like some volatile perfume that has been 
put into a vial and locked away in a drawer and 
forgotten; there will be nothing left but an empty 
bottle, and a rotten cork. Speak your faith if you 
would have your faith strengthened. Muzzle it, and 
you go a long way to killit. You are witnesses, and 
you cannot blink the obligation nor shirk the duties 
without damaging that in yourselves to which you are 
to witness. 

Further, this task of witnessing for Christ can be 
done by all kinds of life. Ido not need to dwell upon 
the distinction between the two great methods which 
open themselves out before every one of us. They do 
so; for direct work in speaking the name of Jesus 
Christ is possible for every Christian, whoever he or 
she is, however weak, ignorant, uninfluential, with 
howsoever narrow a circle. There is always somebody 
that God means to be the audience of His servant 
whenever that servant speaks of Christ. Do you not 
know that there are people in this world, as wives, 
children, parents, friends of different sorts, who would 
listen to you more readily than they would listen to 
any one else speaking about Jesus Christ? Friend, 
have you utilised these relationships in the interests of 
that great Name, and in the highest interests of the 
persons that sustain them to you, and of yourselves 
who sustain these to them? 

And then there is indirect work that we can all do in 


262 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cs. xxi. 


various ways. I do not mean only by giving money, 
though of course that is important, but I mean all the 
manifold ways in which Christian people can show 
their sympathy with, and their interest in, the various 
forms in which adventurous, chivalrous, enterprising 
Christian benevolence expresses itself. It was an old 
law in Israel that ‘as his part was that went down into 
the battle, so should his part be that tarried by the 
stuff. When victory was won and the spoil came to 
be shared, the men who had stopped behind and looked 
after the base of operations and kept open the com- 
munications received the same portion as the man 
that, in the front rank of the battle, had rushed upon 
the spears of the Amalekites. Why? Because from 
the same motive they had been co-operant to the 
same great end. The Master has taken up that very 
thought, and has applied it in relation to the indirect 
work of His people, when He says, ‘He that receiveth 
a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a 
prophet’s reward. The motive is the same; therefore 
the essential character of the act is the same; there- 
fore the recompense is identical. You can witness for 
Christ directly, if you can say—and you can all say if 
you like—‘We have found the Messias,’ and you can 
witness for Christ by casting yourselves earnestly 
into sympathy with and, so far as possible, help to 
the work that your brethren are doing. Dear friends, 
I beseech you to remember that we are all of us, if we 
are His followers, bound in our humble measure and 
degree, and with a reverent apprehension of the gulf 
between us and Him, still to take up His words and 
say, ‘To this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, that I might bear witness to 
the truth,’ 


v. 11] CHRIST’S WITNESSES 263 


II. There is a second thought that I would suggest 

from these words, and that is that secular events are 
ordered with a view to this witnessing. 
’ Take the case before us. Here are two independent 
and hostile powers; on the one hand the bigoted 
Jewish Sanhedrim, hating the Roman yoke; and on 
the other hand the haughty and cruel pressure of that 
yoke on a recalcitrant and reluctant people: and 
these two internecine enemies are working on their 
own lines, each very willing to thwart the other, 
Mechanicians talk of the ‘composition of forces, by 
which two pressures acting at right angles to each other 
on a given object, impart to it a diagonal motion. 
The Sanhedrim on the one side, representing Judaism, 
and the captain of the castle on the other, repre- 
senting the Roman power, work into each other’s 
hands, although neither of them knows it; and work 
out the fulfilment of a purpose that is hidden from 
them both. 

No doubt it would be a miserably inadequate account 
of things to say that the Roman Empire came into 
existence for the sake of propagating Christianity. 
No doubt it is always dangerous to account for any 
phenomenon by the ends which, to our apprehen- 
sion, it serves. But at the same time the study of 
the purposes which a given thing, being in existence, 
serves, and the study of the forces which brought it 
into existence, ought to be combined, and when com- 
bined, they present a double reason for adoring that 
great Providence which ‘makes the wrath of men to 
praise’ it, and uses for moral and spiritual ends the 
creatures that exist, the events that emerge, and 
even the godless doings of godless men. 

So here we have a standing example of the way in 





264° ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cs. xxmt. 


which, like silk-worms that are spinning threads for a 
web that they have no notion of, the deeds of men that 
think not so are yet grasped and twined together by 
Jesus Christ, the Lord of providence, so as to bring 
about the realisation of His great purposes. And that 
is always so, more or less clearly. 

For instance, if we wish to understand our own lives, 
do not let us dwell upon the superfinalities of joy or 
sorrow, gain or loss, but let us get down to the depth, 
and see that all these externals have two great pur- 
poses in view—first, that we may be made like our 
Lord, as the Scripture itself says, ‘That we may be 
partakers of His holiness, and then that we may bear 
our testimony to His grace and love. Oh, if we would 
only look at life from that point of view, we should be 
brought to a stand less often at what we choose to call 
the mysteries of providence! Not enjoyment, not 
sorrow, but our perfecting in godliness and of the 
increase of our power and opportunities to bear 
witness to Him, are the intention of all that befalls us. 

I need not speak about how this same principle must 
be applied, by every man who believes in a divine 
providence, to the wider events of the world’s history. 
I need not dwell upon that, nor will your time allow 
me to do it, but one word I should like to say, and 
that is that surely the two facts that we, as Christians, 
possess, as we believe, the pure faith, and that we, as 
Englishmen, are members of a community whose 
influence is world-wide, do not come together for no- 
thing, or only that some of you might make fortunes 
out of the East Indian and China trade, but in order 
that all we English Christians might feel that, our 
speaking as we do the language which is destined, as it 
would appear, to run round the whole world, and our 


v. 11] CHRIST’S WITNESSES 265 


having, as we have, the faith which we believe brings 
salvation to every man of every race and tongue who 
accepts it, and our having this responsible necessary 
contact with the heathen races, lay upon us English 
Christians obligations the pressure and solemnity of 
which we have yet failed to appreciate. 

Paul was immortal till his work was done. ‘Be of 
good cheer, Paul; thou must bear witness at Rome.’ 
And so, for ourselves and for the Gospel that we 
profess, the same divine Providence which orders 
events so that His servants may have the oppor- 
tunities of witnessing to it, will take care that it shall 
not perish—notwithstanding all the premature jubila- 
tion of anti-Christian literature and thought in this 
day—until it has done its work. We need have no 
fear for ourselves, for though our blind eyes often fail 
to see, and our bleeding hearts often fail to accept, the 
conviction that there are no unfinished lives for His 
servants, yet we may be sure that He will watch over 
each of His children till they have finished the work 
that He gives them to do. And we may be sure, in 
regard to His great Gospel, that nothing can sink the 
ship that carries Christ and His fortunes. ‘Be of good 
cheer... thou hast borne witness... thou must 
bear witness.’ 

III. Lastly, we have here another principle—namely 
that faithful witnessing is rewarded by further 
witnessing. 

‘Thou hast ... in Jerusalem,’ the little city perched 
upon its crag; ‘Thou must ...in Rome, the great 
capital seated on its seven hills. The reward for 
work is more work. Jesus Christ did not say to 
the Apostle, though he was ‘wearied with that 
which came upon him daily, the care of all the 





266 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxi. 


churches,’ ‘Thou hast borne witness, and now come 
apart and rest’; but He said to him, ‘ Thou hast filled the 
smaller sphere; for recompense I put thee into a larger.’ 

That is the law for life and everywhere, the tools to 
the hand that can use them. The man that can doa 
thing gets it to do in too large a measure, as he some- 
times thinks; but he gets it, and it is all right that he 
should. ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ And it is 
the law for heaven. ‘Thou hast borne witness down on 
the little dark earth; come up higher and witness for 
Me here, amid the blaze.’ 

It is the law for this Christian work of ours. If you 
have shone faithfully in your ‘little corner,’ as the 
child’s hymn says, you will be taken out and set upon 
the lamp-stand, that you ‘may give light to all that are 
in the house.’ And it is the law for this great enter- 
prise of Christian missions, as we all know. We are 
overwhelmed with our success. Doors are opening 
around us on every side. There is no limit to the work 
that English Churches can do, except their inclination 
to do it. But the opportunities open to us require a 
far deeper consecration and a far closer dwelling 
beside our Master than we have ever realised. We 
are half asleep yet; we do not know our resources in 
men, in money, in activity, in prayer. 

Surely there can be no sadder sign of decadence and 
no surer precursor of extinction than to fall beneath 
the demands of our day; to have doors opening at 
which we are too lazy or selfish to go in; to be so sound 
asleep that we never hear the man of Macedonia when 
he stands by us and cries, ‘Come over and help us!’ 
We are members of a Church that God has appointed 
to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. Weare 
citizens of a nation whose influence is ubiquitous and 


v. 11] A PLOT DETECTED 267 


felt in every land. By both characters, God summons 
us to tasks which will tax all our resources worthily to 
do. We inherit a work from our fathers which God 
has shown that He owns by giving us these golden 
opportunities. He summons us: ‘Lengthen thy cords 
and strengthen thy stakes. Come out of Jerusalem; 
come into Rome.’ Shall we respond? God give us 
grace to fill the sphere in which He has set us, till He 
lifts us to the wider one, where the faithfulness of the 
steward is exchanged for the authority of the ruler, 
and the toil of the servant for the joy of the Lord! 


A PLOT DETECTED 


* And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound them- 
selves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they 
had killed Paul. 13. And they were more than forty which had made this con- 
spiracy. 14. And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have 
bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain 
Paul. 15. Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that 
he bring him down unto you to-morrow, as though ye would inquire something 
more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill 
him. 16. And when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their lying in wait, he went and 
entered into the castle, and told Paul. 17. Then Paul called one of the centurions 
unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain: for he hath 
a certain thing to tell him. 18. So he took him, and brought him to the chief 
captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring 
this young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee. 19. Then the 
chief captain took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately, and asked 
him, What is that thou hast to tell me? 20. And he said, The Jews have agreed 
to desire thee that thou wouldest bring down Paul to-morrow into the council, 
as though they would enquire somewhat of him more perfectly. 21. But do not 
thou yield unto them: for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, 
which have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither eat nor drink 
till they have killed him: and now are they ready, looking for a promise from 
thee. 22. So the chief captain then let the young man depart, and charged him, 
See thou tell no man that thou hast shewed these things to me.’—ACTs xxiii. 12-22. 


‘THE wicked plotteth against the just... . The Lord 
will laugh at him.’ The Psalmist’s experience and his 
faith were both repeated in Paul’s case. His speech 
before the Council had set Pharisees and Sadducees 
squabbling, and the former had swallowed his Chris- 
tianity for the sake of his being ‘a Pharisee and the 





268 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx. xxm. 


son of a Pharisee.’ Probably, therefore, the hatchers 
of this plot were Sadducees, who hated Pharisees even 
more than they did Christians. The Apostle himself 
was afterwards not quite sure that his skilful throwing 
of the apple of discord between the two parties was 
right (Acts xxiv. 21), and apparently it was the direct 
occasion of the conspiracy. A Christian man’s defence 
of himself and his faith gains nothing by clever tactics. 
It is very doubtful whether what Paul spoke ‘in that 
hour’ was taught him by the Spirit. 

‘The corruption of the best is the worst.’ There is 
a close and strange alliance between formal religion 
and murderous hatred and vulpine craft, as the history 
of ecclesiastical persecution shows; and though we 
have done with fire and faggot now, the same evil 
passions and tempers do still in modified form lie 
very near to a Christianity which has lost its inward 
union with Jesus and lives on surface adherence to 
forms. In that sense too ‘the letter killeth. We 
lift up our hands in horror at these fierce fanatics, 
‘ready to kill’ Paul, because he believed in resurrection, 
angel, and spirit. We need to guard ourselves lest 
something of their temper should be in us. There is 
a devilish ingenuity about the details of the plot, and 
a truly Oriental mixture of murderous passion and 
calculating craft. The serpent’s wisdom and his poison 
fangs are both apparent. The forty conspirators must 
have been ‘ready,’ not only to kill Paul, but to die 
in the attempt, for the distance from the castle to the 
council- chamber was short, and the detachment of 
legionaries escorting the prisoner would have to be 
reckoned with. 

The pretext of desiring to inquire more fully into 
Paul’s opinions derived speciousness from his ambigu- 


vs. 12-22] A PLOT DETECTED 269 


ous declaration, which had set the Council by the ears 
and had stopped his examination. Luke does not tell 
us what the Council said to the conspirators, but we 
learn from what Paul's nephew says in verse 20 that 
it ‘agreed to ask thee to bring down Paul.’ So once 
more the tail drove on the head, and the Council 
became the tool of fierce zealots. No doubt most of its 
members would have shrunk from themselves killing 
Paul, but they did not shrink from having a hand in 
his death. They were most religious and respectable 
men, and probably soothed their consciences with 
thinking that, after all, the responsibility was on the 
shoulders of the forty conspirators. How men can 
cheat themselves for a while as to the criminality of 
indirectly contributing to criminal acts, and how rudely 
the thin veil will be twitched aside one day! 

II. The abrupt introduction of Paul's nephew into 
the story piques curiosity, but we cannot say more 
about him than is told us here. We do not know 
whether he was moved by being a fellow-believer in 
Jesus, or simply by kindred and natural affection. 
Possibly he was, as his uncle had been, a student under 
some distinguished Rabbi. At all events, he must have 
had access to official circles to have come on the track 
of the plot, which would, of course, be covered up as 
much as possible. The rendering in the margin of the 
Revised Version gives a possible explanation of his 
knowledge of it by suggesting that he had ‘come in 
upon them’; that is, upon the Council in their delibera- 
tions. But probably the rendering preferred in the 
text is preferable, and we are left to conjecture his 
source of information, as almost everything else about 
him. But it is more profitable to note how God works 
out His purposes and delivers His scrvants by ‘natural’ 





Be jou ae 


270 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxim. 


means, which yet are as truly divine working as was 
the sending of the angel to smite off Peter's chains, or 
the earthquake at Philippi. 

This lad was probably not an inhabitant of Jeru- 
salem, and that he should have been there then, and 
come into possession of the carefully guarded secret, 
was more than a fortunate coincidence. It was divinely 
ordered, and God's finger is as evident in the concate- 
nation of co-operating natural events as in any ‘miracle.’ 
To co-ordinate these so that they concur to bring about 
the fulfilment of His will may be a less conspicuous, 
but is not a less veritable, token of a sovereign Will 
at work in the world than any miracle is. And in this 
ease how wonderfully separate factors, who think 
themselves quite independent, are all handled like 
pawns on a chessboard by Him who ‘makes the wrath 
of man to praise Him, and girds Himself with the 
remainder thereof!’ Little did the fiery zealots who 
were eager to plunge their daggers into Paul's heart, or 
the lad who hastened to tell him the secret he had 
discovered, or the Roman officer who equally hastened 
to get rid of his troublesome prisoner, dream that they 
were all partners in bringing about one God-determined 
result—the fulfilment of the promise that had calmed 
Paul in the preceding night: ‘So must thou bear wit- 
ness also at Rome.’ 

III. Paul had been quieted after his exciting day by 
the vision which brought that promise, and this new 
peril did not break his peace. With characteristic 
clear-sightedness he saw the right thing to do in the 
circumstances, and with characteristic promptitude he 
did it at once. Luke wastes no words in telling of the 
Apostle’s emotions when this formidable danger was 
sprung on him, and the very reticence deepens the 


vs. 12-22] A PLOT DETECTED 271 


impression of Paul’s equanimity and practical wisdom. 
A man who had had such a vision last night might 
well possess his soul in patience, even though such a 
plot was laid bare this morning; and each servant 
of Jesus may be as well assured, as was Paul the 
prisoner, that the Lord shall ‘keep him from all evil,’ 
and that if his life is ‘witness’ it will not end till his 
witness is complete. Our faith should work in us 
calmness of spirit, clearness of perception of the right 
thing to do, swift seizing of opportunities. Paul trusted 
Jesus’ word that he should be safe, whatever dangers 
threatened, but that trust stimulated his own efforts 
to provide for his safety. 

IV. The behaviour of the captain is noteworthy, as 
showing that he had been impressed by Paul’s personal 
magnetism, and that he had in him a strain of courtesy 
and kindliness. He takes the lad by the hand to en- 
courage him, and he leads him aside that he may 
speak freely, and thereby shows that he trusted him. 
No doubt the youth would be somewhat flustered at 
being brought into the formidable presence and by the 
weight of his tidings, and the great man’s gentleness 
would be a cordial. A superior’s condescension is a 
wonderful lip-opener. We all have some people who 
look up to us, and to whom small kindlinesses from 
us are precious. We do not ‘render to all their dues,’ 
unless we give gracious courtesy to those beneath, as 
well as ‘honour’ to those above, us. But the captain 
could clothe himself too with official reserve and keep 
up the dignity of his office. He preserved an impene- 
trable silence as to his intentions, and simply sealed 
the young man’s lips from tattling about the plot or 
the interview with him. Promptly he acted, without 
waiting for the Council's application to him. At once 


* 
iam 
ar 


= 





272 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxiv. 


he prepared to despatch Paul to Czesarea, glad enough, 
no doubt, to wash his hands of so troublesome a charge. 
Thus he too was a cog in the wheel, an instrument to 
fulfil the promise made in vision, God’s servant though 
he knew it not. 


A LOYAL TRIBUTE? 


*, . . Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds 

are done unto this nation by thy providence, 3. We accept it always... with 
all thankfulness.’—AorTs xxiv. 2-3. 
THESE words were addressed by a professional flatterer 
to one of the worst of the many bad Roman governors 
of Syria. The speaker knew that he was lying, the 
listeners knew that the eulogium was undeserved; and 
among all the crowd of bystanders there was perhaps 
not a man who did not hate the governor, and would 
not have been glad to see him lying dead with a dagger 
in his breast. 

But both the fawning Tertullus and the oppressor 
Felix knew in their heart of hearts that the words 
described what a governor ought to be. And though 
they are touched with the servility which is not loyalty, 
and embrace a conception of the royal function attri- 
buting far more to the personal influence of a monarch 
than our State permits, still we may venture to take 
them as the starting-point for two or three considera- 
tions suggested to us, by the celebrations of the past 
week. 

I almost feel that I owe an apology for turning to 
that subject, for everything that can be said about it 
has been said far better than I can say it. But still, 
partly because my silence might be misunderstood, 


1 Preached on the occasion of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. 


v5.2, 3] A LOYAL TRIBUTE 273 


and partly because an opportunity is thereby afforded 
for looking from a Christian point of view at one 
or two subjects that do not ordinarily come within 
the scope of one’s ministry, I venture to choose such a 
text now. 

I. The first thing that I would take it as suggest- 
ing is the grateful acknowledgment of personal 
worth. 

I suppose the world never saw a national rejoicing 
like that through which we have passed. For the 
reigns that have been long enough to admit of it have 
been few, and those in which intelligently and sincerely 
a whole nation of freemen could participate have 
been fewer still. But now all England has been one; 
whatever our divisions of opinion, there have been no 
divisions here. Not only have the bonfires flared from 
hill to hill in this little island of ours, but all over the 
world, into every out of the way corner where our 
widely-spread race has penetrated, the same sentiment 
has extended. All have yielded to the common impulse, 
the rejoicing of a free people in a good Queen. 

That common sentiment has embraced two things, 
the office and the person. There was a pathetic 
contrast between these two when that sad-hearted 
widow walked alone up the nave of Westminster 
Abbey, and took her seat on the stone of destiny on 
which for a millennium kings have beencrowned. The 
contrast heightened both the reverence due to the 
office and the sympathy due to the woman. The 
Sovereign is the visible expression of national power, 
the incarnation of England, living history, the outcome 
of all the past, the representative of harmonised and 
blended freedom and law, a powerful social influence 
from which much good might flow, a moderating and 

VOL. 0. s 





274 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xx1v. 


uniting power amidst fierce partisan bitterness and 
hate, a check against rash change. There is no nobler 
office upon earth. 

And when, as is the case in this long reign, that office 
has been filled with some consciousness of its responsi- 
bilities, the recognition of the fact is no flattery but 
simple duty. We cannot attribute to the personal 
initiative of the Queen the great and beneficent changes 
which have coincided with her reign. Thank God, 
no monarch can make or mar England now. But this 
we can say, 


‘Her court was pure, her life serene,’ 


A life touched with many gracious womanly charities, 
delighting in simple country pleasures, not strange to 
the homes of the poor, quick to sympathise with 
sorrow, especially the humblest, as many a weeping 
widow at a pit mouth has thankfully felt; sternly 
repressive of some forms of vice in high places, and, 
as we may believe, not ignorant of the great Comforter 
nor disobedient to the King of kings,—for such a 
royal life a nation may well be thankful. We out- 
siders do not know how far personal influence from 
the throne has in any case restrained or furthered 
national action, but if it be true, as is alleged, that 
twice in her reign the Queen has kept England from 
the sin and folly of war, once from a fratricidal conflict 
with the great new England across the Atlantic, then 
we owe her much. If in later years that life has some- 
what shrunk into itself and sat silent, with Grief for 
a companion, those who know a like desolation will 
understand, and even the happy may honour an un- 
dying love and respect the seclusion of an undying 
sorrow. So I say: ‘Forasmuch as under thee we 


vs. 2, 3] A LOYAL TRIBUTE 275 


enjoy great quietness, we accept it with all thank- 
fulness.’ 

II. My text may suggest for us a wider view of 
progress which, although not initiated by the Queen, 
has coincided with her fifty years’ reign. 

In the Revised Version, instead of ‘ worthy deeds are 
done, we read ‘evils are corrected’; and that is the true 
rendering. The double function which is here attri- 
buted falsely to an oppressive tyrant is the ancient 
ideal of monarchy—first, that it shall repress disorders 
and secure tranquillity within the borders and across 
the frontiers; and second, that abuses and evils shall 
be corrected by the foresight of the monarch. 

Now, in regard to both these functions we have 
learned that a nation can do them a great deal better 
than a sovereign. And so when we speak of progress 
during this fifty years’ reign, we largely mean the 
progress which England in its toiling millions and in 
its thinking few has won for itself. Let me in very 
brief words try to touch upon the salient points of 
that progress for which as members of the nation 
it becomes us as Christian people to be thankful. 
Enough hosannas have been sung already, and I need 
not add my poor voice to them, about material progress 
and commercial prosperity and the growth of manu- 
facturing industry and inventions and all the rest of it. 
Ido not for a moment mean to depreciate these, but 
it is of more importance that a telegraph should have 
something to say than that it should be able to speak 
across the waters, and ‘man doth not live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God.’ We who live in a great commercial 
community and know how solid comfort and hope and 
gladness are all contingent, in millions of humble homes, 





276 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xxrv. 


upon the manufacturing industry of these districts, 
shall never be likely to underrate the enormous ex- 
pansion in national industry, and the consequent enor- 
mous increase in national wealth, which belongs to 
this last half century. I need say nothing about 
these. 

Let me remind you, and I can only do it in a sentence 
or two, of more important changes in these fifty years. 
English manners and morals have been bettered, much 
of savagery and coarseness has been got rid of; low, 
cruel amusements have been abandoned. Thanks to 
the great Total Abstinence movement very largely, 
the national conscience has been stirred in regard to 
the great national sin of intoxication. A national 
system of education has come into operation and is 
working wonders in this land. Newspapers and books 
are cheapened; political freedom has been extended 
and ‘broadened slowly down,’ as is safe, ‘from pre- 
cedent to precedent,’ so that no party thinks now of 
reversing any of the changes, howsoever fiercely they 
were contested ere they were won. Religious thought 
has widened, the sects have come nearer each other, 
men have passed from out of a hard doctrinal Chris- 
tianity, in which the person of Christ was buried 
beneath the cobwebs of theology, into a far freer and 
afar more Christ-regarding and Christ-centred faith. 
And if we are to adopt such a point of view as the 
brave Apostle Paul took, the antagonism against 
religion, which is a marked feature of our generation, 
and contrasts singularly with the sleepy acquiescence 
of fifty years ago, is to be put down to the eredit side 
of the account. ‘For,’ he said, like a bold man believing 
that he had an irrefragable truth in his hands, ‘I will — 
tarry here, for a great door and an effectual is opened, 


vs. 2, 3] A LOYAL TRIBUTE 277 


and there are many adversaries. Wherever a whole 
nation is interested and stirred about religious sub- 
jects, even though it may be in contradiction and 
antagonism, God’s truth can fight opposition far better 
than it can contend with indifference. Then if we 
look upon our churches, whilst there is amongst them 
all abounding worldliness much to be deplored, there 
is also, thank God, springing up amongst us a new 
consciousness of responsibility, which is not confined 
to Christian people, for the condition of the poor and 
the degraded around us; and everywhere we see good 
men and women trying to stretch their hands across 
these awful gulfs in our social system which make 
such a danger in our modern life, and to reclaim the 
outcasts of our cities, the most hopeless of all the 
heathen on the face of the earth. These things, on 
which I have touched with the lightest hand, all taken 
together do make a picture for which we may be 
heartily thankful. 

Only, brethren, let us remember that that sort 
of talk about England’s progress may very speedily 
become offensive self-conceit, and a measuring of our- 
selves with ludicrous self-satisfaction against all other 
nations. There is a bastard patriotism which has 
been very loud-mouthed in these last days, of which 
wise men should beware. 

Further, such a contemplation of the elements of 
national progress, which we owe to no monarch and 
to no legislature, but largely to the indomitable pluck 
and energy of our people, to Anglo-Saxon persistence 
not knowing when it is beaten, and to the patient 
meditation of thoughtful minds and the self-denying 
efforts of good philanthropical and religious people— 
such a contemplation, I say, may come between us and 


i; Re xz 
iat i i a | 
vey fe ee 


278 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz. xx1v. 


the recognition of the highest source from which it 
flows, and be corrupted into forgetfulness of God. 
‘Beware lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and 
thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that 
thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up, 
and thou forget the Lord thy God... and thou say 
in thine heart, My power, and the might of mine hand, 
hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember 
the Lord thy God, for it is He that giveth thee power 
to get wealth.’ 

And the last caution that I would put in here is, let 
us beware lest the hosannas over national progress 
shall be turned into ‘Rest and be thankful, or shall 
ever come in the way of the strenuous and persistent 
reaching forth to the fair ideal that lies so far 
before us. 

III. That leads me to the last point on which I would 
say a word, viz., that my text with its reference to 
the correction of evils, as one of the twin functions 
of the monarch, naturally suggests to us the thought 
which should follow all recognition of progress in the 
past—the consideration of what yet remains to be 
done. 

A great controversy has been going on, or at least 
a remarkable difference of opinion has been expressed 
in recent months by two of the greatest minds and 
clearest heads in England; one of our greatest poets 
and one of our greatest statesmen. The one looking 
back over sixty years sees but foiled aspirations and 
present devildom and misery. The other looking back 
over the same period sees accomplished dreams and 
the prophecy of further progress. It is not for me to 
enter upon the strife between such authorities. Both 
are right, Much has beenachieved. ‘There remaineth 








vs. 2,3] A LOYAL TRIBUTE 279 


yet very much land to be possessed.’ Whatever have 
been the victories and the blessings of the past, there 
are rotten places in our social state which, if not 
cauterised and healed, will break out into widespread 
and virulent sores. There are dangers in the near 
future which may well task the skill of the bravest 
and the faith of the most trustful. There are clouds 
on the horizon which may speedily turn jubilations 
into lamentations, and the best security against these 
is that each of us in his place, as a unit however in- 
significant in the great body politic, should use our 
little influence on dpe side that makes for righteousness, 
and see to it that we leave some small corner of this 
England, which God has given us in charge, sweeter 
and holier because of our lives. The ideal for you 
Christian men and women is the organisation of 
society on Christian principles. Have we got to that 
yet, or within sight of it, do you suppose? Look round 
you. Does anybody believe that the present arrange- 
ments in connection with unrestricted competition and 
the distribution of wealth coincide accurately with the 
principles of the New Testament? Will anybody tell 
me that the state of a hundred streets within a mile 
of this spot is what it would be if the Christian men 
of this nation lived the lives that they ought to live? 
Could there be such rottenness and corruption if the 
‘salt’ had not ‘lost his savour’? Will anybody tell me 
that the disgusting vice which our newspapers do 
not think themselves degraded by printing in loath- 
some detail, and so bringing the foulness of a common 
sewer on to every breakfast-table in the kingdom, is 
in accordance with the organisation of society on 
Christian principles? Intemperance, social impurity, 
wide, dreary tracts of ignorance, degradation, bestiality, 





280 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz. xx1y. 


the awful condition of the lowest layer in our great 
cities, crushed like some crumbling bricks beneath the 
ponderous weight of the splendid superstructure, the 
bitter partisan spirit of politics, where the followers 
of each chief think themselves bound to believe that 
he is immaculate and that the other side has no honour 
or truth belonging to it—these things testify against 
English society, and make one almost despair when 
one thinks that, after a thousand years and more of 
professing Christianity, that is all that we can show 
for it. 

O brethren! we may be thankful for what has 
been accomplished, but surely there had need also to 
be penitent recognition of failure and defect. And I 
lay it on the consciences of all that listen to me now 
to see to it that they do their parts as members 
of this body politic of England. A great heritage 
has come down from our fathers; pass it on bettered 
by your self-denial and your efforts. And remember 
that the way to mend a kingdom is to begin by 
mending yourselves, and letting Christ’s kingdom come 
in your own hearts. Next we are bound to try to 
further its coming in the hearts of others, and so to 
promote its leavening society and national life. No 
Christian is clear from the blood of men and the guilt 
of souls who does not, according to opportunity and 
capacity, repair before his own door, and seek to make 
some one know the unsearchable riches of the Gospel 
of Christ. 

There is no finality for a Christian patriot until his 
country be organised on Christian principles, and so 
from being merely a ‘kingdom of the world’ become 
‘a Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. To help 
forward that consummation, by however little, is the 


vs. 2, 3] PAUL BEFORE FELIX 281 


noblest service that prince or peasant can render to his 
country. By conformity to the will of God and not 
by material progress or intellectual enlightenment is 
a state prosperous and strong. To keep His statutes 
and judgments is ‘your wisdom and understanding in 
the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these 
statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise 
and understanding people.’ 


PAUL BEFORE FELIX 


‘Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered, 
Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, 
I do the more cheerfully answer for myself: 11. Because that thou mayest under- 
stand, that there are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem for to 
worship. 12. And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, 
neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, nor in the city: 13. 
Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. 14. But this I 
confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the 
God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the 
prophets: 15, And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, 
that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. 16. And 
herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward 
God, and toward men. 17. Now after many years I came to bring alms to my 
nation, and offerings. 18. Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified 
in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult. 19. Who ought to have 
been here before thee, and object, if they had ought against me. 20. Or else let 
these same here say, if they have found any evil-doing in me, while I stood before 
the council, 21. Except it be for this one voice, that I cried standing among them, 
Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day. 
22. And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that 
way, he deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come down, 
I will know the uttermost of your matter. 23. And he commanded a centurion to 
keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his 
acquaintance to minister or come unto him. 24. And after certain days, when 
Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard 
him concerning the faith in Christ. 25. And as he reasoned of righteousness, tem- 
perance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for 
this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.’-—ActTs xxiv. 10-25. 


TERTULLUS made three charges against Paul: first, that 
he incited to rebellion; second, that he was a principal 
member of a ‘sect’; third (with a ‘moreover, as if an 
afterthought), that he had profaned the Temple. It 
was more clever than honest to put the real cause of 
Jewish haired last, since it was a trifle in Roman eyes, 





282 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cea. xxiv. 


and to put first the only thing that Felix would think 
worth notice. A duller man than he might have 
scented something suspicious in Jewish officials being 
so anxious to suppress insurrection against Rome, 
and probably he had his own thoughts about the 
good faith of the accusers, though he said nothing. 
Paul takes up the three points in order. Unsupported 
charges can only be met by emphatic denials. 

I, Paul’s speech is the first part of the passage. Its 
dignified, courteous beginning contrasts well with the 
accuser’s dishonest flattery. Paul will not lie, but he 
will respect authority, and will conciliate when he can 
do so with truth. Felix had been ‘judge’ for several 
years, probably about six. What sort of a judge he 
had been Paul will not say. At any rate he had gained 
experience which might help him in picking his way 
through Tertullus’s rhetoric. 

The Apostle answers the first charge with a flat 
denial, with the remark that as the whole affair was 
less than a fortnight old the truth could easily be ascer- 
tained, and that the time was very short for the Jews 
to have ‘found’ him such a dangerous conspirator, and 
with the obviously unanswerable demand for proof to 
back up the charge. In the absence of witnesses there 
was nothing more to be done about number one of the 
accusations, and a just judge would have said so and 
sent Tertullus and his clients about their business. 

The second charge Paul both denies and admits. He 
does belong to the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. But 
that is not a ‘sect’; itis‘the Way. It is nota diverg- 
ence from the path in which the fathers have walked, 
trodden only by some self-willed schismatics, but it is the 
one God-appointed path of life, ‘the old way, the only 
road by which a man can walk nobly and travel to the 





_vs.10-25] PAUL BEFORE FELIX 283 


| skies. Paul’s whole doctrine as to the relation of Juda- 
' ism to Christianity is here in germ and in a form 
adapted to Felix’s comprehension. This so-called sect 
- (ver. 14 takes up Tertullus’s word in ver. 5) is the true 
' Judaism, and its members are more truly ‘Jews’ than 
they who are such ‘outwardly.’ For what has Paul 
cast away in becoming a Christian? Not the worship 
of the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, 
not the law, not the prophets, not the hope of a resur- 
rection. 

He does not say that he practises all the things 
written in the law, but that he ‘believes’ them. Then 
the law was revelation as well as precept, and was 
to be embraced by faith before it could be obeyed in 
practice; it was, as he says elsewhere, a ‘schoolmaster 
to bring us unto Christ.’ Judaism is the bud; Chris- 
tianity is the bright consummate flower. Paul was not 
preaching his whole Gospel, but defending himself from 
a specific charge; namely that, as being a ‘ Nazarene,’ 
he had started off from the main line of Jewish reli- 
gion. He admits that he isa ‘ Nazarene, and he assumes 
correctly that Felix knew something about them, but 
he denies that he is a sectary, and he assumes that the 
charge would be more truly made against those who, 
accusing him, disbelieved in Christ. He hints that they 
did not believe in either law or prophets, else they 
would have been Nazarenes too. 

The practical results of his faith are stated. ‘Herein’; 
that is in the faith and hope just spoken of. He will 
not say that these make him blameless towards God 
and men, but that such blamelessness is his aim, which 
he pursues with earnest toil and self-control. A 
Christianity which does not sovereignly sway life and 
brace its professor up to the self-denial needful to 





284 | ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xx1v. 


secure a conscience void of offence is not Paul’s kind 
of Christianity. If we move in the circle of the great 
Christian truths we shall gird ourselves to subdue the 
flesh, and will covet more than aught else the peace of 
a good conscience. But, like Paul, we shall be slow to 
say that we have attained, yet not afraid to say that 
we strive towards, that ideal. 

The third charge is met by a plain statement of his 
real purpose in coming to Jerusalem and frequenting 
the Temple. ‘Profane the Temple! Why, I came all 
the way from Greece on purpose to worship at the 
Feast; and I did not come empty-handed either, for I 
brought alms for my nation ’—the contributions of the 
Gentiles to Jews—‘and I was a worshipper, discharg- 
ing the ceremonial purifications.’ They called him a 
‘Nazarene’; he was in the Temple as a ‘Nazarite.’ 
Was it likely that, being there on such an errand, he 
should have profaned it? 

He begins a sentence, which would probably have 
been an indignant one, about the ‘certain Jews from 
Asia, the originators of the whole trouble, but he 
checks himself with a fine sense of justice. He will say 
nothing about absent men. And that brings him back 
to his strong point, already urged, the absence of proof 
of the charges. Tertullus and company had only hear- 
say. What had become of the people who said they 
saw him in the Temple? No doubt they had thought 
discretion the better part of valour, and were not 
anxious to face the Roman procedure. 

The close of the speech carries the war into the 
enemy’s quarters, challenging the accusers to tell what 
they had themselves heard. They could be witnesses 
as to the scene at the Council, which Tertullus had 
wisely said nothing about. Pungent sarcasm is in 


vs. 10-25] PAUL BEFORE FELIX 285 


Paul's closing words, especially if we remember that 
the high officials, like Ananias the high-priest, were 
Sadducees. The Pharisees in the Council had acquitted 
him when they heard his profession of faith in a resur- 
_ rection. That was his real crime, not treason against 
Rome or profanation of the Temple. The present 
| accusers might be eager for his condemnation, but 
half of their own Sanhedrim had acquitted him. ‘And 
_ these unworthy Jews, who have cast off the nation’s 
hope and believe in no resurrection, are accusing me of 
being an apostate! Who is the sectary—I or they ?’ 

II. There was only one righteous course for Felix, 
namely, to discharge the prisoner. But he yielded to 
the same temptation as had mastered Pilate, and shrank 
_ from provoking influential classes by doing the right 
_ thing. He was the less excusable, because his long 
tenure of office had taught him something, at all 
events, of ‘the Way. He had too many crimes to 
venture on raising enemies in his government; he had 
too much lingering sense of justice to give up an 
innocent man. So like all weak men in difficult 
positions he temporised, and trusted to accident to 
make the right thing easier for him. 

His plea for delay was conveniently indefinite. When 
was Lysias coming? His letter said nothing about 
such an intention, and took for granted that all the 
materials for a decision would be before Felix. Lysias 
could tell no more. The excuse was transparent, but it 
served to stave off a decision, and to-morrow would 
bring some other excuse. Prompt carrying out of all 
plain duty is the only safety. The indulgence given to 
Paul, in his light confinement, only showed how clearly 
Felix knew himself to be doing wrong, but small 
alleviations do not patch up a great injustice. 











286 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxrv. 


III. One reading inserts in verse 24 the statement 
that Drusilla wished to see Paul, and that Felix sum- 
moned him in order to gratify her. Very probably she, 
as a Jewess, knew something of ‘the Way,’ and with 
a love of anything odd and new, which such women 
cannot do without, she wanted to see this curious 
man and hear him talk. It might amuse her, and pass 
an hour, and be something to gossip about. 

She and Felix got more than they bargained for. 
Paul was not now the prisoner, but the preacher; and 
his topics were not wanting in directness and plainness. 
He ‘reasoned of righteousness’ to one of the worst of 
unrighteous governors; of ‘temperance’ to the guilty 
couple who, in calling themselves husband and wife, 
were showing themselves given over to sinful passions; 
and of ‘judgment to come’ to a man who, to quote the 
Roman historian, ‘thought that he could commit all 
evil with impunity.’ 

Paul’s strong hand shook even that obdurate soul, 
and roused one of the two sleeping consciences. Dru- 
silla may have been too frivolous to be impressed, but 
Felix had so much good left that he could be conscious 
of evil. Alas! he had so much evil that he suppressed 
the good. His ‘convenient season’ was then; it never 
came again. For though he communed with Paul 
often, he trembled only once. So he passed into 
the darkness. 





FELIX BEFORE PAUL 
A Sermon to the Young 


* And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, 

Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient 
season, I will call for thee.’ —Acts xxiv. 25. 
FELIX and his brother had been favourite slaves of the 
Emperor, and so had won great power at court. At 
the date of this incident he had been for some five or 
six years the procurator of the Roman province of 
Judza; and how he used his power the historian 
Tacitus tells v3 in one of his bitter sentences, in which 
he says, ‘ He wielded his kingly authority with the spirit 
of a slave, in all cruelty and lust.’ 

He had tempted from her husband, Drusilla, the 
daughter of that Herod whose dreadful death is familiar 
to us all; and his court reeked with blood and de- 
bauchery. He is here face to face with Paul for the 
second time. Ona former interview he had seen good 
reason to conclude that the Roman Empire was not in 
much danger from this one Jew whom his countrymen, 
with suspicious loyalty, were charging with sedition; 
and so he had allowed him a very large margin of 
liberty. 

On this second occasion he had sent for him evidently 
not as a judge, but partly with a view to try to get 
a bribe out of him, and partly because he had some 
kind of languid interest, as most Romans then had, in 
Oriental thought—some languid interest perhaps too 
in this strange man. Or he and Drusilla were possibly 
longing for a new sensation, and not indisposed to give 
a moment's glance at Paul with his singular ideas. 


So they called for the Apostle, and the guilty 
287 


a 





288 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxrv. 


couple found a judge in their prisoner. Paul does 
not speak to them as a Greek philosopher, anxious 
to please high personages, might have done, but he 
goes straight at their sins: he reasons ‘of righteous- 
ness’ with the unjust judge, ‘of temperance’ with the 
self-indulgent, sinful pair, ‘of the judgment to come’ 
with these two who thought that they could do 
anything they liked with impunity. Christianity has 
sometimes to be exceedingly rude im reference to 
the sins of the upper classes. 

As Paul went on, a strange fear began to creep about 
the heart of Felix. It is the watershed of his life that 
he has come to, the crisis of his fate. Everything 
depends on the next five minutes. Will he yield? Will 
he resist? The tongue of the balance trembles and 
hesitates for a moment, and then, but slowly, the 
wrong scale goes down; ‘Go thy way for this time.’ 
Ah! if he had said, ‘Come and help me to get rid: of 
this strange fear, how different all might have been! 
The metal was at the very point of melting. What 
shape would it take? It ran into the wrong mould, 
and, as far as we know, it was hardened there. ‘It 
might have been once, and he missed it, lost it for ever. 
No sign marked out that moment from the common 
uneventful moments, though it saw the death of a 
soul.’ 

Now, my dear young friends, I do not intend to say 
anything more to you of this man and his character, 
but I wish to take this incident and its lessons and urge 
them on your hearts and consciences. 

I. Let me say a word or two about the fact, of which 
this incident is an example, and of which I am afraid 
the lives of many of you would furnish other examples, 
that men lull awakened consciences to sleep and excuse 


v. 25] FELIX BEFORE PAUL 289 


delay in deciding for Christ by half-honest promises to 
attend to religion at some future time. 

‘Go thy way for this time’ is what Felix is really 
anxious about. His one thought is to get rid of Paul 
and his disturbing message for the present. But he 
does not wish to shut the door altogether. He gives a 


- sop to his conscience to stop its barking, and he pro- 


bably deceives himself as to the gravity of his present 
decision by the lightly given promise and its well- 
guarded indefiniteness, ‘When I have a convenient 
season I will send for thee. The thing he really means 
is—Not now, at all events; the thing he hoodwinks 
himself with is—By and by. Now that is what Iknow 
that some of you are doing; and my purpose and earnest 
prayer are to bring you now to the decision which, by 
one vigorous act of your wills, will settle the question 
for the future as to which God you are going to follow. 

So then I have just one or two things to say about this 
first part of my subject. Let me remind you that how- 
ever beautiful, however gracious, however tender and 
full of love and mercy and good tidings the message of 
God’s love in Jesus Christ is, there is another side to it, 
a side which is meant to rouse men’s consciences and 
to awaken men’s fears. 

If you bring a man like the man in the story, Felix, 
or a very much better man than he—any of you who 
hear me now—into contact with these three thoughts, 
‘Righteousness, temperance, judgment to come,’ the 
effect of such a direct appeal to moral convictions will 
always be more or less to awaken a sense of failure, 
insufficiency, defect, sin, and to create a certain creep- 
ing dread that if I set myself against the great law of 
God, that law of God will have a way of crushing me. 
The fear is well founded, and not only does the contem- 

VOL. I. Ls 





290 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES {[cu. xxiv. 


plation of God’s law excite it. God’s gospel comes to us, 
and just because it is a gospel, and is intended to lead 
you and me to love and trust Jesus Christ, and give our 
whole hearts and souls to Him—just because it is the 
best ‘good news’ that ever came into the world, it begins 
often (not always, perhaps) by making a man feel what 
a sinful man he is, and how he has gone against God's 
law, and how there hang over him, by the very neces- 
sities of the case and the constitution of the universe, 
consequences bitter and painful. Now I believe that 
there are very few people who, like you, come occa- 
sionally into contact with the preaching of the truth, 
who have not had their moments when they felt— Yes, 
it is all true—it is all true. I am bad, and I have broken 
God’s law, and there 7s a dark lookout before me!’ I 
believe that most of us know what that feeling is. 

And now my next step is—that the awakened con- 
science is just like the sense of pain in the physical 
world, it has a work to do and a mission to per- 
form. It is meant to warn you off dangerous ground. 
Thank God for pain! It keeps off death many a time. 
And in like manner thank God for a swift conscience 
that speaks! It is meant to ring an alarm-bell to us, to 
make us, as the Bible has it, ‘ flee for refuge to the hope 
that is set before us.’ My imploring question to my 
young friends now is: ‘Have you used that sense of 
evil and wrongdoing, when it has been aroused in your 
consciences, to lead you to Jesus Christ, or what have 
you done with it?’ 

There are two persons in this Book of the Acts of the 
Apostles who pass through the same stages of feeling 
up to a certain point, and then they diverge. And the 
two men’s outline history is the best sermon that I can 
preach upon this point. Felix becoming afraid, recoils, 





v.25) FELIX BEFORE PAUL 291 


shuts himself up, puts away the message that disturbs 


him, and settles himself back into his evil. The Philip- 
_ pian jailer becoming afraid (the phrases in the original 


being almost identical), like a sensible man tries to find 
out the reason of his fear and how to get rid of it; 
and falls down at the Apostles’ feet and says, ‘Sirs, 
what must I do to be saved ?’ 

The fear is not meant to last; it is of no use in itself. 
It is only an impelling motive that leads us to look to 
the Saviour, and the man that uses it so has used it 
rightly. Yet there rises in many a heart that tran- 
sparent self-deception of delay. ‘They all with one 
consent began to make excuse’; that is as true to-day 
as it was true then. My experience tells me that it 
will be true in regard to a sad number of you who will 
go away feeling that my poor word has gone a little 
way into their hardened hide, but settling themselves 
back into their carelessness, and forgetting all impres- 
sions that have been made. O dear young friend, do 
not do that, I beseech you! Do not stifle the whole- 
some alarm and cheat yourself with the notion of a 


little delay! 


II. And now I wish next to pass very swiftly in 
review before you some of the reasons why we fall 
into this habit of self-deceiving, indecision, and delay— 
‘Go thy way’ would be too sharp and unmistakable if 
it were left alone, so it is fined off. ‘I will not commit 
myself beyond to-day, ‘for this time go thy way, and 
when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.’ 

What are the reasons for such an attitude as that? 
Let me enumerate one or two of them as they strike 
me. First, there is the instinctive, natural wish to get 
rid of a disagreeable subject—much as a man, without 
knowing what he is doing, twitches his hand away from 


292 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xx1v. 


the surgeon’s lancet. Soa great many of us do not like 
—and no wonder that we do not like—these thoughts of 
the old Book about ‘righteousness and temperance and 
judgment to come, and make a natural effort to turn 
our minds away from the contemplation of the subject, 
because it is painful and unpleasant. Do you think it 
would be a wise thing for a man, if he began to suspect 
that he was insolvent, to refuse to look into his books 
or to take stock, and let things drift, till there was not 
a halfpenny in the pound for anybody? What do you 
suppose his creditors would call him? They would not 
compliment him on either his honesty or his prudence, 
would they? And is it not the part of a wise man, if 
he begins to see that something is wrong, to get to the 
bottom of it and, as quickly as possible, to set it right ? 
And what do you call people who, suspecting that there 
may be a great hole in the bottom of the ship, never 
man the pumps or do any caulking, but say, ‘Oh, she 
will very likely keep afloat until we get into harbour’? 

Do you not think that it would be a wiser thing for you 
if, because the subject is disagreeable, you would force - 
yourself to think about it until it became agreeable to © 
you? You can change it if you will, and make it not at 
all a shadow or a cloud or a darkness over you. And 
you can scarcely expect to claim the designation of 
wise and prudent orderers of your lives until you do. 
Certainly it is not wise to shuffle a thing out of sight 
because it is not pleasing to think about. 

Then there is another reason. A number of our 
young people say, ‘Go thy way for this time,’ because 
you have a notion that it is time enough for you to 
begin to think about serious things and be religious 
when you grow a bit older. And some of you even, I 
dare say, have an idea that religion is all very well for 


v. 25] FELIX BEFORE PAUL 298 


people that are turned sixty and are going down the 
hill, but that it is quite unnecessary for you. Shake- 
speare puts a grim word into the mouth of one of his 
characters, which sets the theory of many of us in its 
true light, when, describing a dying man calling on 
God, he makes the narrator say: ‘I, to comfort him, bid 
him he should not think of God. I hoped there was no 


_ need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.’ 


Some of my hearers practically live on that principle, 
and are tempted to regard thoughts of God as in place 
only among medicine bottles, or when the shadows of 
the grave begin to fall cold and damp on our path. 
‘Young men will be young men, ‘We must sow 
our wild oats, ‘You can’t put old heads on young 
shoulders’—and such like sayings, often practically 
mean that vice and godlessness belong to youth, and 
virtue and religion to old age, just as flowers do to 
spring and fruit toautumn. Let me beseech you not to 
be deceived by such a notion; and to search your own 
thoughts and see whether it be one of the reasons 
which leads you to say, ‘Go thy way for this time.’ 

Then again some of us fall into this habit of putting 
off the decision for Christ, not consciously, not by any 
distinct act of saying, ‘No, I will not,’ but simply by 
letting the impressions‘made on our hearts and con- 
sciences be crowded out of them by cares and .enjoy- 
ments and pleasures and duties of this world. If you 
had not so much to study at College, you would have 
time to think about religion. If you had not so 
many parties and balls to go to, you would have time 
to nourish and foster these impressions. If you had 
not your place to make in the warehouse, if you had 
not this, that, and the other thing to do; if you had not 
love and pleasure and ambition and advancement and 





294 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxrv. 


mental culture to attend to, you would have time for 
religion; but as soon as the seed is sown and the sower's 
back is turned, hovering flocks of light-winged thoughts 
and vanities pounce down upon it and earry it away, 
seed by seed. And if some stray seed here and there 
remains and begins to sprout, the ill weeds which grow 
apace spring up with ranker stems and choke it. ‘The 
cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and 
the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, 
and efface the impression made upon your hearts. 

Here as I speak some serious thought is roused ; by to- 
morrow at midday it has all gone. You did not intend 
it to go, you did not set yourself to banish it, you 
simply opened the door to the flocking in of the whole 
crowd of the world’s cares and occupations, and away 
went the shy, solitary thought that, if it had been cared 
for and tended, might have led you at last to the Cross 
of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be drifted, 
by the rushing current of earthly cares, from the im- 
pressions that are made upon your consciences and 
from the duty that you know you ought todo! ~ 

And then some of you fall into this attitude of delay, 
and say to the messenger of God’s love, ‘Go thy way 
for this time,’ because you do not like to give up some- 
thing that you know is inconsistent with His love and 
service. Felix would not part with Drusilla nor dis- 
gorge the ill-gotten gains of his provinee. Felix there- 
fore was obliged to put away from him the thoughts 
that looked in that direction. I wonder if there is any 
young man listening to me now who feels that if he 
lets my words carry him where they seek to carry him, 
he will have to give up ‘fleshly lusts which war against 
the soul’? I wonder if there is any young woman 
listening to me now who feels that if she lets my 


v. 25] FELIX BEFORE PAUL 295 


words carry her where they would carry her, she will 
have to live a different life from that which she has been 
living, to have more of a high and a noble aim in it, to 
live for something else than pleasure? I wonder if 
there are any of you who are saying, ‘I cannot give up 
that’? My dear young friend, ‘If thine eye offend 
thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.’ It is better for 
thee to enter into life blind than with both eyes to be 
cast into hell-fire. 

Reasons for delay, then, are these: first, getting rid 
of an unpleasant subject; second, thinking that there 
is time enough; third, letting the world obliterate the 
impressions that have been made; and fourth, shrink- 
ing from the surrender of something that you know 
you will have to give up. 

III. And now let me very briefly, as my last point, 
put before you one or two of the reasons which I would 
fain might be conclusive with you for present decision 
to take Christ for your Saviour and your Master. 

And I say, Do not delay, but now choose Him for 
your Redeemer, your Friend, your Helper, your Com- 
mander, your All; because delay is really decision in the 
wrong way. Do not delay, but take Jesus Christ as 
the Saviour of your sinful souls, and rest your hearts 
upon Him to-night before you sleep; because there is 
no real reason for delay. No season will be more con- 
venient than the present season. Every time is the 
right time to do the right thing, every time is the right 
time to begin following Him. There is nothing to wait 
for. There is no reason at all, except their own dis- 
inclination, why every man and woman listening to 
me should not now grasp the Cross of Christ as their 
only hope for forgiveness and acceptance, and yield 
themselves to that Lord, to live in His service for ever. 





296 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cs. xxrv. 


Let not this day pass without your giving yourselves 
to Jesus Christ, because every time that you have this 
message brought to you, and you refuse to accept it, or 
delay to accept it, you make yourselves less capable of 
receiving it another time. 

If you take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a 
slip of wood and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the 
blaze is, there drops from it a white ash that coats the 
wood and makes it almost incombustible. And so when 
the flaming conviction laid upon your hearts has burnt 
itself out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very 
difficult to kindle the light there again. Felix said, ‘Go 
thy way, when I have a more convenient season I will 
send for thee.’ Yes, and he did send for Paul, and he 
talked with him often—he repeated the conversation, 
but we do not know that he repeated the trembling. 
He often communed with Paul, but it was only once 
that he was alarmed. You are less likely to be touched 
by the Gospel message for every time that you have 
heard it and put it away. That is what makes my 
place here so terribly responsible, and makes me feel 
that my words are so very feeble in comparison with 
what they ought to be. I know that I may be doing 
harm to men just because they listen and are not 
persuaded, and so go away less and less likely to be 
touched. 

Ah, dear friends! you will perhaps never again have 
as deep impressions as you have now; or at least they 
are not to be reckoned upon as probable, for the 
tendency of all truth is to lose its power by repetition, 
and the tendency of all emotion which is not acted 
upon is to become fainter and fainter. And so I 
beseech you that now you would cherish any faint 
impression that is being made upon your hearts and 





v. 25] FELIX BEFORE PAUL 297 


consciences. Let it lead you to Christ; and take Him 
for your Lord and Saviour now. 

I say to you: Do that now because delay robs you 
of large blessing. You will never want Jesus Christ 
more than you do to-day. You need Him in your 
early hours. Why should it be that a portion of your 
lives should be left unfilled by that rich mercy? Why 
should you postpone possessing the purest joy, the 
highest blessing, the divinest strength? Why should 
you put off welcoming your best Friend into your 
heart? Why should you? 

I say to you again, Take Christ for your Lord, because 
delay inevitably lays up for you bitter memories and 
involves dreadful losses. There are good Christian 
men and women, I have no doubt, in this world now, 
who would give all they have, if they could blot out of 
the tablets of their memories some past hours of their 
lives, before they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. I 
would have you ignorant of such transgression. O 
young men and women! if you grow up into middle 
life not Christians, then should you ever become so, 
you will have habits to fight with, and remembrances 
that will smart and sting; and some of you, perhaps, 
remembrances that will pollute, even though you are 
conscious that you are forgiven. It is a better thing 
not to know the depths of evil than to know them and 
to have been raised from them. You will escape infinite 
sorrows by an early cleaving to Christ your Lord. 

And last of all I say to you, give yourselves now 
to Jesus Christ, because no to-morrow may be yours. 
Delay is gambling, very irrationally, with a very un- 
certain thing—your life and your future opportunities. 
‘You know not what shall be on the morrow.’ 

For a generation I have preached in Manchester 





298 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xxv1. 


these annual sermons to the young. Ah, how many of 
those that heard the early ones are laid in their graves; 
and how many of them were laid in early graves; and 
how many of them said, as some of you are saying, 
‘When I get older I will turn religious’! And they 
never got older. It isa commonplace word that, but I 
leave it on your hearts. You have no time to lose. 

Do not delay, because delay is decision in the wrong 
way; do not delay, because there is no reason for 
delay; do not delay, because delay robs you of a large 
blessing; do not delay, because delay lays up for you, 
if ever you come back, bitter memories; do not delay, 
because delay may end in death. And for all these 
reasons, come as a sinful soul to Christ the Saviour; 
and ask Him to forgive you, and follow in His foot- 
steps, and do it now! ‘To-day, if ye will hear His 
voice, harden not your hearts.’ 


CHRIST'S REMONSTRANCES 


‘And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, 
and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? itis hard 
for thee to kick against the pricks.’—AcTs xxvi. 14. 


‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard 
his spots?’ No. But God can change the skin, because 
He can change the nature. In this story of the con- 
version of the Apostle Paul—the most important thing 
that happened that day—we have an instance how 
brambles may become vines; tares may become wheat; 
and a hater of Jesus Christ may be changed in a 
moment into His lover and servant, and, if need be, 
His martyr. 

Now the very same motives and powers which were 
brought to bear upon the Apostle Paul by miracle are 


v.14] CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES 299 


being brought to bear upon every one of us; and my 
object now is just to trace the stages of the process 
set forth here, and to ask some of you, if you, like 
Paul, have been ‘obedient to the heavenly vision.’ 
Stages, I call them, though they were all crowded into 
a moment, for even the lightning has to pass through 
the intervening space when it flashes from one side of 
the heavens to another, and we may divide its path 
into periods. Time is very elastic, as any of us whose 
lives have held great sorrows or great joys or great 
resolutions well know. 

I. The first of these all but simultaneous and yet 
separable stages was the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Of course to the Apostle it was mediated by 
miracle; but real as he believed that appearance of 
the risen Lord in the heavens to be, and valid as he 
maintained that it was as the ground of his Apostle- 
ship, he himself, in one of his letters, speaks of the 
whole incident as being the revelation of God’s Son 
in him. The revelation in heart and mind was the 
main thing, of which the revelation to eye and ear 
were but means. The means, in his case, are different 
from those in ours; the end is the same. To Paul it 
came like the rush of a cataract that the Christ whom 
he had thought of as lying in an unknown grave was 
living in the heavens and ruling there. You and I,I 
suppose, do not need to be convinced by miracle of 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ; but the bare fact that 
Jesus was living in the heavens would have had little 
effect upon Saul, unless it had been accompanied with 
the revelation of the startling fact that between him 
and Jesus Christ there were close personal relations, 
so that he had to do with Jesus, and Jesus with him. 

‘Saul, Saul! why persecutest thou Me?’ They used 





800 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cz. xxyv1. 


to think that they could wake sleep-walkers by address- 
ing them by name. Jesus Christ, by speaking His name 
to the Apostle, wakes him out of his diseased slumber, 
and brings him to wholesome consciousness. There 
are stringency and solemnity of address in that double 
use of the name ‘Saul, Saul!’ 

What does such an address teach youandme? That 
Jesus Christ, the living, reigning Lord of the universe, 
has perfect knowledge of each of us, and that we each 
stand isolated before Him, as if all the light of omni- 
science were focussed upon us. He knows our char- 
acters; He knows all about us, and more than that, 
He directly addresses Himself to each man and woman 
among us. 

We are far too apt to hide ourselves in the crowd, 
and let all the messages of God’s love, the warnings 
of His providences, as well as the teachings and in- 
vitations and pleadings of His gospel, fly over our 
heads as if they were meant vaguely for anybody. 
But they are all intended for thee, as directly as if 
thou, and thou only, wert in the world. I beseech you, 
lay this to heart, that although no audible sounds 
may rend the silent heavens, nor any blaze may blind 
thine eye, yet that as really, though not in the same 
outward fashion as Saul, when they were all fallen 
to the earth, felt himself to be singled out, and heard a 
voice ‘speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, saying, 
Saul, Saul!’ thou mayest hear a voice speaking to 
thee in the English tongue, by thy name, and directly 
addressing its gracious remonstrances and its loving 
offers to thy listening ear. I want to sharpen the 
blunt ‘whosoever’ into the pointed ‘thou.’ And I would 
fain plead with each of my friends hearing me now 
to believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for 


v.14) CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES 301 


thee, and that Christ speaks to thee. ‘I have a message 
from God unto thee,’ just as Nathan said unto David, 
‘ Thou art the man!’ 

Do not lose yourselves in the crowd or hide your- 
selves from the personal incidence of Christ’s offer, 
but feel that you stand, as you do indeed, alone the 
hearer of His voice, the possible recipient of His saving 
mercy. 

II. Secondly, notice, as another stage in this process, 
the discovery of the true character of the past. 

‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ Now I am not going 
to be tempted from my more direct purpose in this 
sermon to dwell even for a moment on the beautiful, 
affecting, strengthening thought here, of the unity of 
Jesus Christ with all the humble souls that love Him, 
so as that, whatsoever any member suffers, the Head 
suffers with it. I must leave that truth untouched. 

Saul was brought to look at all his past life as 
standing in immediate connection with Jesus Christ. 
Of course he knew before the vision that he had no 
love to Him whom he thought to be a Galilean im- 
postor, and that the madness with which he hated the 
servants was only the glancing off of the arrow that 
he would fain have aimed at the Master. But he did 
not know that Jesus Christ counted every blow struck 
at one of His servants as being struck at Him. Above 
all he did not know that the Christ whom he was 
persecuting was reigning in the heavens. And so his 
whole past life stood before him in a new aspect when 
it was brought into close connection with Christ, = 
looked at as in relation to Him. 

The same process would yield very remarkable 
results if applied to our lives. If I could only get you 
for one quiet ten minutes, to lay all your past, as far 





302 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on. xxvz. 


as memory brought it to your minds, right before 
that pure and loving Face, I should haye done much. 
One infallible way of judging of the rottenness or 
goodness of our actions is that we should bring them 
where they will all be brought one day, into the 
brightness of Christ's countenance. If you want to 
find out the flaws in some thin, badly-woven piece of 
cloth, you hold it up against the light, do you not? 
and then you see all the specks and holes, and the 
irregular threads. Hold. up your lives in like fashion 
against the light, and I shall be surprised if you do 
not find enough there to make you very much ashamed 
of yourselves. Were you ever on the stage of a theatre 
in the daytime? Did you ever see what miserable 
daubs the scenes look, and how seamy it all is when 
the pitiless sunshine comes in? Let that great light 
pour on your life, and be thankful if you find out what 
a daub it has been, whilst yet colours and brushes and 
time are at your disposal, and you may paint the 
future fairer than the past. 

Again, this revelation of Saul’s past life disclosed 
its utter unreasonableness. That one question, ‘Why 
persecutest thou Me?’ pulverised the whole thing. It 
was like the wondering question so unanswerable in 
the Psalm, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people 
imagine a vain thing?’ If you take into account what 
you are, and where you stand, you can find no reason, 
except utterly unreasonable ones, for the lives that 
I fear some of us are living—lives of godlessness and 
Christlessness. There is nothing in all the world a 
tithe so stupid as sin. There is nothing so unreason- 
able, if there be a God at all, and if we depend upon 
Him, and have duties to Him, as the lives that some 
of you are living. You admit, most of you, that there 


v.14) CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES 303 


is such a God; you admit, most of you, that you do 
hang upon Him; you admit, in theory, that you ought 
to love and serve Him. The bulk of you call your- 
selves Christians. That is to say, you believe, as a 
piece of historical fact, that Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God, came into this world and died for men. And, 
believing that, you turn your back on Him, and neither 
love nor serve nor trust Him nor turn away from 
your iniquity. Is there anything outside a lunatic 
asylum more madlike than that? ‘Why persecutest 
thou?’ ‘And he was speechless, for no answer 
was possible. Why neglectest thou? Why forgettest 
thou? Why, admitting what thou dost, art thou not 
an out-and-out Christian? If we think of all our 
obligations and relations, and the facts of the universe, 
we come back to the old saying, ‘The fear of the Lord 
is the beginning of wisdom, and any man who, like 
many of my hearers, fails to give his heart and life 
to Jesus Christ will one day have to say, ‘ Behold, I 
have played the fool, and erred exceedingly. Wake 
up, my brother, to apply calm reason to your lives 
while yet there is time, and face the question, Why 
dost thou stand as thou dost to Jesus Christ? There 
is nothing sadder than the small share that deliberate 
reason and intelligent choice have in the ordering of 
most men’s lives. You live by impulse, by habit, by 
example, by constraint of the outward necessities of 
your position. But I am sure that there are many 
amongst us now who have very seldom, if ever, sat 
down and said, ‘Now let me think, until I get to the 
ultimate grounds of the course of life that I am pur- 
suing. You can carry on the questions very gaily for 
a step or two, but then you come to a dead pause. 
‘What do I do so-and-so for?’ ‘Because I like it.’ 





304 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ea. xxv1. 


‘Why do I like it?’ ‘Because it meets my needs, or 
my desires, or my tastes, or my intellect.’ Why do you 
make the meeting of your needs, or your desires, or 
your tastes, or your intellect your sole object? Is there 
any answer to that? The Hindoos say that the world 
rests upon an elephant, and the elephant rests upon a 
tortoise. What does the tortoise rest on? Nothing! 
Then that is what the world and the elephant rest 
on. And so, though you may go bravely through the 
first stages of the examination, when you come to 
the last question of all, you will find out that your 
whole scheme of life is built upon a blunder; and the 
blunder is this, that anybody can be blessed without 
God. 

Further, this disclosure of the true character of 
his life revealed to Saul, as in a lightning flash, the 
ingratitude of it. 

‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ That was as much as 
to say, ‘What have I done to merit thy hate? What 
have I not done to merit rather thy love?’ Paul did 
not know all that Jesus Christ had done for him. It 
took him a lifetime to learn a little of it, and to tell 
his brethren something of what he had learned. And 
he has been learning it ever since that day when, 
outside the walls of Rome, they hacked off his head. 
He has been learning more and more of what Jesus 
Christ has done for him, and why he should not per- 
secute Him but love Him. 

But the same appeal comes to each of us. What 
has Jesus Christ done for thee, my friend, for me, for 
every soul of man? He has loved me better than His 
own life. He has given Himself for me. He has 
lingered beside me, seeking to draw me to Himself, 
and He still lingers. And this, at the best, tremulous 


j 


v.14] CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES 305 


faith, this, at the warmest, tepid love, this, at the 
completest, imperfect devotion and service, are all that 
we bring to Him; and some of us do not bring even 
these. Some of us have never known what it was to 
sacrifice one inclination for the sake of Christ, nor to 
do one act for His dear love’s sake, nor to lean our 
weakness upon Him, nor to turn to Him and say, ‘I 
give Thee myself, that I may possess Thee.’ ‘Do ye 
thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?’ 
Ihave heard of wounded soldiers striking with their 
bayonets at the ambulance men who came to help 


them. That is like what some of you do to the Lord 


who died for your healing, and comes as the Physician, 
with bandages and with balm, to bind up the broken- 
hearted. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’ 

III. Lastly, we have here a warning against self- 
inflicted wounds. : 

That second clause of the remonstrance on the lips 
of Christ in my text is, according to the true reading, 
not found in the account of Paul’s conversion in the 
ninth chapter of this book. My text is from Paul's 
own story; and it is interesting to notice that he adds 
this eminently pathetic and forcible appeal to the 
shorter account given by the writer of the book. It 
had gone deep into his heart, and he could not forget. 

The metaphor is a very plain one. The ox-goad 
was a formidable weapon, some seven or eight feet in 
length, shod with an iron point, and capable of being 
used as a spear, and of inflicting deadly wounds at a 
pinch. Held in the firm hand of the ploughman, it 
presented a sharp point to the rebellious animal under 
the yoke. If the ox had readily yielded to the gentle 
prick, given, not in anger, but for guidance, it had 
been well. But if it lashes out with its hoofs against 

VOL. I U 





306 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxv1. 


the point, what does it get but bleeding flanks? Paul 
had been striking out instead of obeying, and he had 
won by it only bloody hocks. 

There are two truths deducible from this saying, 
which may have been a proverb in common use. One 
is the utter futility of lives that are spent in opposing 
the divine will. There is a strong current running, 
and if you try to go against it you will only be swept 
away by it. Think of some little fishing coble coming 
across the bow of a great ocean-going steamer. What 
will be the end of that? Think of a pony-chaise 
jogging up the line, and an express train thundering 
down it. What will be the end of that? Think of 
a man lifting himself up and saying to God, ‘I will 
not!’ when God says, ‘Do thou this!’ or ‘Be thou 
this!’ What will be the end of that? ‘The world 
passeth away, and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth 
the will of God abideth for ever. ‘It is hard for 
thee to kick against the pricks’—hard in regard to 
breaches of common morality, as some of my friends 
sitting quietly in these pews very well know. It is 
hard to indulge in sensual sin. You cannot altogether 
dodge what people call the ‘natural consequences’; 
but it was God who made Nature; and so I call them 
God-inflicted penalties. It is hard to set yourselves 
against Christianity. I am not going to speak of 
that.at all now, only when we think of the expecta- 
tions of victory with which so many antagonists 
of the Cross have gaily leaped into the arena, and of 
how the foes have been forgotten and there stands 
the Cross still, we may say of the whole crowd, be- 
ginning with the earliest, and coming down to the 
latest brand-new theory that is going to explode 
Christianity—‘it is hard to kick against the pricks.’ 


. 
3: 
Pas 


v.14] CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES 307 


Your own limbs you may wound; you will not do the 
goad much harm. 

But there is another side to the proverb of my text, 
and that is the self-inflicted harm that comes from 
resisting the pricks of God’s rebukes and remon- 
strances, whether inflicted by conscience or by any 
other means; including, I make bold to say, even 
such poor words as these of mine. For if the first 
little prick of conscience, a warning and a guide, be 
neglected, the next will go a great deal deeper. The 
voice which, before you do the wrong thing, says to 
you, ‘Do not do it, in tones of entreaty and remon- 
strance, speaks, after you have done it, more severely 
and more bitterly. The Latin word remorse, and the 
old English name for conscience, ‘again-bite’—which 
latter is a translation of the other—teach us the same 
lesson, that the gnawing which comes after wrong 
done is far harder to bear than the touch that should 
have kept us from the evil. The stings of marine 
jelly-fish will burn for days after, if you wet them. 
And so all wrong-doing, and all neglect of right-doing 
of every sort, carries with it a subsequent pain, or 
else the wounded limb mortifies, and that is worse. 
There is no pain then; it would be better if there 
were. There is such a possibility as to have gone on 
so obstinately kicking against the pricks and leaving 
the wounds so unheeded, as that they mortify and 
feeling goes. A conscience ‘seared with a hot iron’ is 
ten times more dreadful than a conscience that pains 
and stings. 

So, dear brethren, let me beseech you to listen to 
the pitying Christ, who says to us each, more in 
sorrow than in anger, ‘It is hard for thee to kick 
against the pricks.’ It is no pleasure to Him to hold 





308 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxv1. 


the goad, nor that we should wound ourselves upon 
it. He has another question to put to us, with another 
‘why, ‘Why should ye be stricken any more? Turn 
ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel ?’ 

There is another metaphor drawn from the employ- 
ment of oxen which we may set side by side with this 
of my text: ‘Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find 
rest unto your souls. The yoke accepted, the goad is 
laid aside; and repose and healing from its wounds 
are granted to us. Dear brethren, if you will listen to 
the Christ revealed in the heavens, as knowing all 
about you, and remonstrating with you for your un- 
reasonableness and ingratitude, and setting before 
you the miseries of rebellion and the suicide of sin, 
then you will have healing for all your wounds, and 
your lives will neither be self-tormenting, futile, nor 
unreasonable. The mercy of Jesus Christ lavished 
upon you makes your yielding yourselves to Him your 
only rational course. Anything else is folly beyond 
comparison and harm and loss beyond count. 


FAITH IN CHRIST 
‘, . . Faith that is in Me."—Acts xxvi. 18. 


It is commonly said, and so far as the fact is concerned, 
said truly, that what are called the distinguishing 
doctrines of Christianity are rather found in the 
Epistles than in the Gospels. If we wish the clearest 
statements of the nature and person of Christ, we turn 
to Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians. If we wish the 
fullest dissertation upon Christ’s work as a sacrifice, 
we go to the Epistle to the Hebrews. If we seek to 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 809 


prove that men are justified by faith, and not by 
works, it is to the Epistles to Romans and Galatians 
that we betake ourselves,—to the writings of the 
servant rather than the words of the Master. Now 
this fuller development of Christian doctrine contained 
in the teaching of the Apostles cannot be denied, and 
need not be wondered at. The reasons for it I am not 
going to enter upon at present; they are not far to 
seek. Christ came not to speak the Gospel, but to be 
the Gospel. But then, this truth of a fuller develop- 
ment is often over-strained, as if Christ ‘spake nothing 
concerning priesthood, sacrifices, faith. He did so 
speak when on earth. It is often misused by being 
made the foundation of an inference unfavourable to 
the authority of the Apostolic teaching, when we are 
told, as we sometimes are, that not Paul but Jesus 
speaks the words which we are to receive. 

Here we have Christ Himself speaking from the 
heavens to Paul at the very beginning of the Apostle’s 
course, and if any one asks us where did Paul get the 
doctrines which he preached, the answer is, Here, on 
the road to Damascus, when blind, bleeding, stunned, 
with all his self-confidence driven out of him—with all 
that he had been crushed into shivers—he saw his 
Lord, and heard Him speak. These words spoken then 
are the germ of all Paul’s Epistles, the keynote to 
which all his writings are but the melody that follows, 
the mighty voice of which all his teaching is but the 
prolonged echo. ‘Delivering thee, says Christ to him, 
‘from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom 
now I send thee, to open their eyes, to turn them from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith 





310 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on. xxv. 


that isin Me. Now,Iask you, what of Paul’s Gospel 
is not here? Man's ruin, man’s depravity and state of 
darkness, the power of Satan, the sole redemptive 
work of Christ, justification by belief in that, sanctifi- 
cation coming with justification, and glory and rest 
and heaven at last—there they all are in the very first 
words that sounded upon the quickened ear of the 
blinded man when he turned from darkness to light. 

It would be foolish, of course, to try to exhaust such 
a passage as thisinasermon. But notice, what a com- 
plete summary of Christian truth there lies in that one 
last clause of the verse, ‘Inheritance among them 
which are sanctified by faith that isin Me. Translate 
that into distinct propositions, and they are these: 
Faith refers to Christ; that is the first thing. Holiness 
depends on faith; that is the next: ‘sanctified by 
faith. Heaven depends on holiness: that is the last: 
‘inheritance among them‘which are sanctified by faith 
that is in Me.’ So there we have the whole gospel! 

To the one part of this comprehensive summary 
which is contained in my text I desire to turn now, in 
hope of gathering from it some truths as to that 
familiar word ‘faith’ which may be of use to us all. 
The expression is so often on our lips that it has come 
to be almost meaningless in many minds. These key- 
words of Scripture meet the same fate as do coins that 
have been long in circulation. They pass through so 
many fingers that the inscriptions get worn off them. 
We can all talk about faith and forgiveness and justi- 
fying and sanctifying, but how few of us have definite 
notions as to what these words that come so easily 
from our lips mean! There is a vast deal of cloudy 
haze in the minds of average church and chapel goers 
as to what this wonder-working faith may really be. 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 311 


Perhaps we may then be able to see large and needful 
truths gleaming in these weighty syllables which Christ 
Jesus spoke from heaven to Paul, ‘faith that is in Me,’ 

I. In the first place, then, the object of faith is Christ. 

‘Faith that is in Me’ is that which is directed towards 
Christ as its object. Christianity is not merely a system 
of truths about God, nor a code of morality deducible 
from these. In its character of a revelation, it is the 
revelation of God in the person of His Son. Christian- 
ity in the soul is not the belief of these truths about 
God, still less the acceptance and practice of these pure 
ethics, but the affiance and the confidence of the whole 
spirit fixed upon the redeeming, revealing Christ. 

True, the object of our faith is Christ as made known 
to us in the facts of His recorded life and the teaching 
of His Apostles. True, our only means of knowing 
Him as of any other person whom we have never seen, 
are the descriptions of Him, His character and work, 
which are given. True, the empty name ‘Christ’ has 
to be filled with the doctrinal and biographical state- 
ments of Scripture before the Person on whom faith is 
to fix can be apprehended or beheld. True, it is Christ 
as He is made known to us in the word of God, the 
Incarnate Son, the perfect Man, the atoning Sacrifice, 
the risen Lord, the ascended Intercessor in whom we 
have to trust. The characteristics and attributes of 
Christ are known to us only by biographical statements 
and by doctrinal propositions. These must be under- 
stood in some measure and accepted, ere there can be 
faith in Him. Apart from them, the image of Christ 
must stand a pale, colourless phantom before the mind, 
and the faith which is directed towards such a nebula 
will be an unintelligent emotion, as nebulous and 
impotent as the vagueness towards which it turns. 





312 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxv1. 


Thus far, then, the attempt which is sometimes made 
to establish a Christianity without doctrines on the 
plea that the object of faith is not a proposition, but a 
person, must be regarded as nugatory; for how can 
the ‘person’ be an object of thought at all, but through ~ 
the despised ‘ propositions’ ? 

But while on the one hand it is true that Christ as 
revealed in these doctrinal statements of Scripture, 
the divine human Saviour, is the Object of faith, on 
the other hand it is to be remembered that it is 
He, and not the statements about Him, who is the 
Object. 

Look at His own words. He does not merely say to 
us, ‘Believe this, that, and the other thing about Me; 
put your credence in this and the other doctrine; accept 
this and the other promise; hope for this and the other 
future thing. All these come with but are not the 
central act. He says, ‘Believe: believe in Me! “JZ 
am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”: He that 
cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth 
in Me shall never thirst. Do we rightly appreciate 
that? I think that if people firmly grasped this truth 
—that Christ is the Gospel, and that the Object of faith 
is not simply the truths that are recorded here in the 
word, but He with regard to whom these truths are 
recorded—it would clear away rolling wreaths of fog 
and mist from their perceptions. The whole feeling 
and attitude of a man’s mind is different, according as 
he is trusting a person, or according as he is believ- 
ing something about a person. And this, therefore, 
is the first broad truth that lies here. Faith has 
reference not merely to a doctrine, not to a system; 
but deeper than all these, to a living Lord—‘ faith that 
is in Me,’ 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 313 


I cannot help observing, before I go on—though it 
may be somewhat of a digression—what a strong 
inference with regard to the divinity of Christ is 
deducible from this first thought that He is the Object 
to whom faith has reference. If you look into the Old 
Testament, you will find constantly, ‘Trust ye in the 
Lord for ever’; ‘Put thy trust in Jehovah!’ There, 
too, though under the form of the Law, there, too, faith 
was the seed and germ of all religion. There, too, 
though under the hard husk of apparently external 
obedience and ceremonial sacrifices, the just lived by 
faith. Its object was the Jehovah of that ancient 
covenant. Religion has always been the same in every 
dispensation. At every time, that which made a man 
a devout man has been identically the same thing. It 
has always been true that it has been faith which has 
bound man to God, and given man hope. But when 
we come to the New Testament, the centre is shifted, 
as it would seem. What has become of the grand old 
words, ‘Trust ye in the Lord Jehovah’? Look! Christ 
stands there, and says, ‘Believe upon Me’! With calm, 
simple, profound dignity, He lays His hand upon all the 
ancient and consecrated words, upon all the ancient and 
hallowed emotions that used to set towards the unseen 
God between the cherubim, throned above judgment 
and resting upon mercy; and He says, ‘They are Mine 
—give them to Me! That ancient trust, I claim the 
right to haveit. That old obedience, it belongs to Me. 
Iam He to whom in all time the loving hearts of them 
that loved God, have set. I am the Angel of the 
Covenant, in whom whoever trusteth shall never be 
confounded.’ And I ask you just to take that one 
simple fact, that Christ thus steps, in the New Testa- 
ment—in so far as the direction of the religious 





314 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ox. xxv. 


emotions of faith and love are concerned—that Christ 
steps into the place filled by the Jehovah of the Old; 
and ask yourselves honestly what theory of Christ’s 
nature and person and work explains that fact, and 
saves Him from the charge of folly and blasphemy ? 
‘He that believeth upon Me shall never hunger.’ Ah, 
my brother! He was no mere man who said that. He 
that spake from out of the cloud to the Apostle on the 
road to Damascus, and said, ‘Sanctified by faith that is 
in Me,’ was no mere man. Christ was our brother 
and a man, but He was the Son of God, the divine 
Redeemer. The Object of faith is Christ; and as Object 
of faith He must needs be divine. 

II. And now, secondly, closely connected with and 
springing from this thought as to the true object of 
faith, arises the consideration as to the nature and the 
essence of the act of faith itself. 

Whom we are to trust in we have seen: what it is to 
have faith may be very briefly stated. If the Object — 
of faith were certain truths, the assent of the under- 
standing would be enough. If the Object of faith were 
unseen things, the confident persuasion of them would 
be sufficient. If the Object of faith were promises of ~ 
future good, the hope rising to certainty of the posses- 
sion of these would be sufficient. But if the Object be 
more than truths, more than unseen realities, more 
than promises; if the Object be a living Person,—then 
there follows inevitably this, that faith is not merely 
the assent of the understanding, that faith is not 
merely the persuasion of the reality of unseen things, 
that faith is not merely the confident expectation of 
future good; but that faith is the personal relation 
of him who has it to the living Person its Object,— 
the relation which is expressed not more clearly, but 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 315 


perhaps a little more forcibly to us, by substituting 
another word, and saying, Faith is trust. 
And I think that there again, by laying hold of that 
simple principle, Because Christ is the Object of Faith, 
therefore Faith must be trust, we get bright and 
beautiful light upon the grandest truths of the Gospel 
of God. If we will only take that as our explanation, 
we have not indeed defined faith by substituting the 
other word for it, but we have made it a little more 
clear to our apprehensions, by using a non-theological 
word with which our daily acts teach us to connect an 
intelligible meaning. If we will only take that as our 
explanation, how simple, how grand, how familiar too 
it sounds,—to trust Him! It is the very same kind of 
feeling, though different in degree, and glorified by the 
majesty and glory of its Object, as that which we all 
know how to put forth in our relations with one another. 
We trust each other. That is faith, We have con- 
fidence in the love that has been around us, breathing 
benedictions and bringing blessings ever since we were 
little children. When the child looks up into the 
mother’s face, the symbol to it of all protection, or 
into the father’s eye, the symbol to it of all authority, 
—that emotion by which the little one hangs upon the 
loving hand and trusts the loving heart that towers 
above it in order to bend over it and scatter good, is 
the same as the one which, glorified and made divine, 
rises strong and immortal in its power, when fixed and 
fastened on Christ, and saves the soul. The Gospel 
rests upon a mystery, but the practical part of it is no 
mystery. When we come and preach to you, ‘ Trust in 
Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ we are not asking you 
to put into exercise some mysterious power. Weare 
only asking you to give to Him that which you give to 





316 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xxvt 


others, to transfer the old emotions, the» blessed 
emotions, the exercise of which makes gladness in life 
here below, to transfer them to Him, and to rest safe 
in the Lord. Faith is trust. The living Person as its 
Object rises before us there, in His majesty, in His 
power, in His gentleness, and He says, ‘I shall be 
contented if thou wilt give to Me these emotions which 
thou dost fix now, to thy death and loss, on the 
creatures of a day.’ Faith is mighty, divine, the gift of 
God; but Oh! it is the exercise of a familiar habit, only 
fixed upon a divine and eternal Person. 

And if this be the very heart and kernel of the 
Christian doctrine of faith—that it is simple personal 
trust in Jesus Christ; it is worthy of notice, how all 
the subsidiary meanings and uses of the word flow out 
of that, whilst it cannot be explained by any of them. 
People are in the habit of setting up antitheses betwixt 
faith and reason, betwixt faith and sight, betwixt faith 
and possession. They say, ‘We do not know, we must 
believe’; they say, ‘We do not see, we must have faith’; 
they say, ‘We do not possess, we must trust. Now 
faith—the trust in Christ—the simple personal relation 
of confidence in Him—that lies beneath all these other 
meanings of the word. For instance, faith is, in one 
sense, the opposite and antithesis of sight; because 
Christ, unseen, having gone into the unseen world, the 
confidence which is directed towards Him must needs 
pass out beyond the region of sense, and fix upon the 
immortal verities that are veiled by excess of light at 
God's right hand. Faith is the opposite of sight; inas- 
much as Christ, having given us assurance of an 
unseen and everlasting world, we, trusting in Him, 
believe what He says to us, and are persuaded and 
know that there are things yonder which we have 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 317 


never seen with the eye nor handled with the hand. 
Similarly, faith is the completion of reason; because, 
trusting Christ, we believe what He says, and He has 
spoken to us truths which we in ourselves are unable 
to discover, but which, when revealed, we accept on 
the faith of His truthfulness, and because we rely upon 
Him. Similarly, faith is contrasted with present 
possession, because Christ has promised us future 
blessings and future glories; and having confidence in 
the Person, we believe what He says, and know that we 
shall possess them. But the root from which spring 
the power of faith as the opposite of sight, the power of 
faith as the telescope of reason, the power of faith as the 
‘confidence of things not possessed,’ is the deeper thing 
—faith in the Person, which leads us to believe Him 
whether He promises, reveals, or commands, and to 
take His words as verity because He ¢s ‘the Truth.’ 
And then, again, if this, the personal trust in Christ 
as our living Redeemer—if this be faith, then there 
come also, closely connected with it, certain other 
emotions or feelings in the heart. For instance, if I 
am trusting to Christ, there is inseparably linked with 
it self-distrust. There are two sides to the emotion; 
where there is reliance upon another, there must needs 
be non-reliance upon self. Take an illustration. There 
is the tree: the trunk goes upward from the little seed, 
rises into the light, gets the sunshine upon it, and has 
leaves and fruit. That is the upward tendency of faith 
—trust in Christ. There is the root, down deep, buried, 
dark, unseen. Both are springing, but springing in 
opposite directions, from the one seed. That is, as it 
were, the negative side, the downward tendency—self- 
distrust. The two things go together—the positive 
reliance upon another, the negative distrust of myself. 





318 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xxv1. 


There must be deep consciousness not only of my own 
impotence, but of my own sinfulness. The heart must 
be emptied that the seed of faith may grow; but the 
entrance in of faith is itself the means for the empty- 
ing of the heart. The two things co-exist; we can 
divide them in thought. We can wrangle and squabble, 
as divided sects have done, about which comes first, 
the fact being, that though you can part them in 
thought, you cannot part them in experience, inas- 
much as they are but the obverse and the reverse, the 
two sides of the same coin. Faith and repentance 
—faith and self-distrust—they are done in one and the 
same indissoluble act. 

And again, faith, as thus conceived of, will obviously 
have for its certain and immediate consequence, love. 
Nay, the two emotions will be inseparable and practi- 
cally co-existent. In thought we can separate them. 
Logically, faith comes first, and love next, but in life 
they will spring up together. The question of their order 
of existence is an often-trod battle-ground of theology, 
all strewed with the relics of former fights. But in the 
real history of the growth of religious emotions in the 
soul, the interval which separates them is impalpable, 
and in every act of trust, love is present, and funda- 
mental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust in 
Christ. 

But without further reference to such matters, here 
is the broad principle of our text. Trust in Christ, not 
mere assent to a principle, personal dependence upon 
Him revealed as the ‘Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world, an act of the will as well as of the 
understanding, and essentially an act of the will and 
not of the understanding—that is the thing by which a 
soul is saved. And much of the mist and confusion 


v.18] FAITH IN CHRIST 319 


about saving faith, and non-saving faith, might be 
lifted and dispersed if we once fully apprehended and 
firmly held by the divine simplicity of the truth, that 
faith is trust in Jesus Christ. 

III. Once more: from this general definition there 
follows, in the third place, an explanation of the power 
of faith. 

‘Weare justified, says the Bible, ‘by faith. Ifaman 
believes, he is saved. Why so? Not, as some people 
sometimes seem to fancy, as if in faith itself there 
was any merit. There is a very strange and subtle 
resurrection of the whole doctrine of works in reference 
to this matter; and we often hear belief in the Gospel 
of Christ spoken about as if zt, the work of the man 
believing, was, in a certain way and to some extent, 
that which God rewarded by giving him salvation. 
What is that but the whole doctrine of works come 
up again in a new form? What difference is there 
between what a man does with his hands and what a 
man feels in his heart? If the one merit salvation, 
or if the other merit salvation, equally we are 
shut up to this,—Men get heaven by what they 
do; and it does not matter a bit what they do it 
with, whether it be body or soul. When we say 
we are saved by faith, we mean accurately, through 
faith. It is God that saves. It is Christ’s life, Christ’s 
blood, Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s intercession, that saves. 
Faith is simply the channel through which there flows 
over into my emptiness the divine fulness; or, to use 
the good old illustration, it is the hand which is held 
up to receive the benefit which Christ lays in it. A 
living trust in Jesus has power unto salvation, only 
because it is the means by which ‘the power of God 
unto salvation’ may come into my heart. On one side 





320 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xxv1. 


is the great ocean of Christ’s love, Christ's abundance, 
Christ’s merits, Christ's righteousness; or, rather, there 
is the great ocean of Christ Himself, which includes 
them all; and on the other is the empty vessel of my 
soul—and the little narrow pipe that has nothing to do 
but to bring across the refreshing water, is the act of 
faith in Him. There is no merit in the dead lead, no 
virtue in the mere emotion. It is not faith that saves 
us; it is Christ that saves us, and saves us through faith. 

And now, lastly, these principles likewise help us to 
understand wherein consists the guilt and criminality of 
unbelief. People are sometimes disposed to fancy that 
God has arbitrarily selected this one thing, believing 
in Jesus Christ, as the means of salvation, and do not 
distinctly see why and how non-belief is so desperate 
and criminal a thing. I think that the principles that 
I have been trying feebly to work out now, help us to 
see how faith is not arbitrarily selected as the instru- 
ment and means of our salvation. There is no other 
way of effecting it. God could not save us in any 
other way than that, salvation being provided, the con- 
dition of receiving it should be trust in His Son. 

And next they show where the guilt of unbelief lies. 
Faith is not first and principally an act of the under- 
standing; it is not the mere assent to certain truths. 
I believe, for my part, that men are responsible even 
for their intellectual processes, and for the beliefs 
at which they arrive by the working of these; and I 
think it is a very shallow philosophy that stands up 
and says—(it is almost exploded now, and perhaps not 
needful even to mention it)—that men are ‘no more 
responsible for their belief than they are for the colour 
of their hair.’ Why, if faith were no more than an 
intellectual process, it would still be true that they are 


v. 18] FAITH IN CHRIST 321 


responsible for it; but the faith that saves a man, and 
unbelief that ruins a man, are not processes of the 
understanding alone. It is the will, the heart, the 
whole moral being, that is concerned. Why does any 
one not trust Jesus Christ? For one reason only: 
because he will not. Why has any one not faith in the 
Lamb of God? Because his whole nature is turning 
away from that divine and loving Face, and is setting 
itself in rebellion: against it. Why does any one refuse 
to believe? Because he has confidence in himself; 
because he has not a sense of his sins; because he 
has not love in his heart to his Lord and Saviour. 
Men are responsible for unbelief. Unbelief is criminal, 
because it is a moral act—an act of the whole nature. 
Belief or unbelief is the test of a man’s whole spiritual 
condition, just because it is the whole being, affections, 
will, conscience and all, as well as the understanding, 
which are concerned init. And therefore Christ, who 
says, ‘Sanctified by faith that is in Me, says likewise, 
‘He that believeth not, shall be condemned.’ 

And now, brethren, take this one conviction into 
your hearts, that what makes a man a Christian—what 
saves my soul and yours—what brings the love of 
Christ into any life, and makes the sacrifice of Christ a 
power to pardon and purify,—that that is not merely 
believing this Book, not merely understanding the 
doctrines that are there, but a far more profound 
act than that. It is the casting of myself upon Him- 
self, the bending of my willing heart to His loving 
Spirit; the close contact, heart to heart, soul to soul, 
will to will, of my emptiness with His fulness, of my 
sinfulness with His righteousness, of my death with 
His life: that I may live by Him, be sanctified by Him, 
be saved by Him, ‘ with an everlasting salvation.’ Faith 

VOL. Ii. x 





CBee} 


322 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxv. 


is trust: Christ is the Object of faith. Faith is the con- 
dition of salvation; and unbelief is your fault, your 
loss—the crime which ruins men’s souls! 


‘BEFORE GOVERNORS AND KINGS’ 


‘Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision : 
20. But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout 
all the coasts of Judeea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and 
turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. 21. For these causes the Jews 
caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. 22, Having therefore 
obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and 
great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did 
say should come; 23. That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first 
that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to 
the Gentiles. 24. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, 
Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. 25. But he 
said, Iam not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and 
soberness. 26. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak 
frecly : for lam persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for 
this thing was not done in a corner. 27. King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets? I know that thou believest. 28. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian. 29. And Paul said, I would to God, that 
not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether 
such asI am, except these bonds, 30. And when he had thus spoken, the king 
rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them: 31. And 
when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man 
docth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. 32. Then said Agrippa unto Festus, 
This man might have been set at liberty, ifhe had not appealed unto Cesar.’— 
ACTS xxvi. 19-32. 


FESTUS was no model of a righteous judge, but he had 
got hold of the truth as to Paul, and saw that what 
he contemptuously called ‘certain questions of their 
own superstition, and especially his assertion of the 
Resurrection, were the real crimes of the Apostle in 
Jewish eyes. But the fatal wish to curry favour 
warped his course, and led him to propose a removal 
of the ‘venue’ to Jerusalem. Paul knew that to 
return thither would seal his death-warrant, and was 
therefore driven to appeal to Rome. 

That took the case out of Festus’s jurisdiction. So 
that the hearing before Agrippa was an entertainment, 
got up for the king’s diversion, when other amusements 
had been exhausted, rather than a regular judicial 


vs. 19-32] ‘GOVERNORS AND KINGS’ 323 


proceeding. Paul was examined ‘to make a Roman 
holiday. Festus’s speech (chap. xxv. 24-27) tries to 
put on a colour of desire to ascertain more clearly the 
charges, but that is a very thin pretext. Agrippa had 
said that he would like ‘to hear the man, and so the 
performance was got up ‘by request. Not a very 
sympathetic audience fronted Paul that day. A king 
and his sister,a Roman governor, and all the élite of 
Cesarean society, ready to take their cue from the 
faces of these three, did not daunt Paul. The man 
who had seen Jesus on the Damascus road could face 
‘small and great.’ 

The portion of his address included in the passage 
touches substantially the same points as did his 
previous ‘apologies. We may note how strongly he 
puts the force that impelled him on his course, and 
lays bare the secret of his life. ‘I was not disobedient 
to the heavenly vision’; then the possibility of dis- 
obedience was open after he had heard Christ ask, 
‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ and had received com- 
mands from His mouth. Then, too, the essential 
character of the charge against him was that, instead 
of kicking against the owner’s goad, he had bowed his 
neck to his yoke, and that his obstinate will had 
melted. Then, too, the ‘light above the brightness 
of the sun’ still shone round him, and his whole life 
was one long act of obedience. 

We note also how he sums up his work in verse 20, 
representing his mission to the Gentiles as but the last 
term in a continuous widening of his field, from 
Damascus to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Judza (a 
phase of his activity not otherwise known to us, and 
for which, with our present records, it is difficult to 
find a place), from Juda to the Gentiles. Step by step 





324 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxv1. 


he had been led afield, and at each step the ‘heavenly 
vision’ had shone before him. 

How superbly, too, Paul overleaps the distinction of 
Jew and Gentile, which disappeared to him in the 
unity of the broad message, which was the same to 
every man. Repentance, turning to God, works 
worthy of repentance, are as needful for Jew as for 
Gentile, and as open to Gentile as toJew. What but 
universal can such a message be? To limit it would 
be to mutilate it. 

We note, too, the calmness with which he lays his 
finger on the real cause of Jewish hate, which Festus 
had already found out. He does not condescend to 
rebut the charge of treason, which he had already re- 
pelled, and which nobody in his audience believed. He 
is neither afraid nor angry, as he quietly points to the 
deadly malice which had no ground but his message. 

We further note the triumphant confidence in God 
and assurance of His help in all the past, so that, like 
some strong tower after the most crashing blows of 
the battering-ram, he still ‘stands.’ ‘His steps had 
wellnigh slipped,’ when foe after foe stormed against 
him, but ‘ Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.’ 

Finally, Paul gathers himself together, to leave as his 
last word the mighty sentence in which he condenses 
his whole teaching, in its aspect of witness-bearing, in 
its universal destination and identity to the poorest and 
to loftily placed men and women, such as sat languidly 
looking at him now, in its perfect concord with the 
earlier revelation, and in its threefold contents, that it 
was the message of the Christ who suffered, who rose 
from the dead, who was the Light of the world. Surely 
the promise was fulfilled to him, and it was ‘given him 
in that hour what he should speak.’ 


vs. 19-32] ‘GOVERNORS AND KINGS’ 825 


The rustle in the crowd was scarcely over, when the 
strong masterful voice of the governor rasped out the 
coarse taunt, which, according to one reading, was 
made coarser (and more lifelike) by repetition, ‘Thou 
art mad, Paul; thou art mad.’ So dida hard ‘practical 
man’ think of that strain of lofty conviction, and of 
that story of the appearance of the Christ. To be in 
earnest about wealth or power or science or pleasure 
is not madness, so the world thinks; but to be in 
earnest about religion, one’s own soul, or other people’s, 
is. Which was the saner, Paul, who ‘counted all things 
but dung that he might win Christ, or Festus, who 
counted keeping his governorship, and making all that 
he could out of it, the one thing worth living for? Who 
is the madman, he who looks up and sees Jesus, and 
bows before Him for lifelong service, or he who looks 
up and says, ‘I see nothing up there; I keep my eyes 
on the main chance down here’? It would bea saner 
and a happier world if there were more of us mad after 
Paul’s fashion. 

Paul's unruffiled calm and dignity brushed aside 
the rude exclamation with a simple affirmation that 
his words were true in themselves, and spoken by 
one who had full command over his faculties; and 
then he turned away from Festus, who understood 
nothing, to Agrippa, who, at any rate, did understand 
a little. Indeed, Festus has to take the second place 
throughout, and it may have been the ignoring 
of him that nettled him. For all his courtesy to 
Agrippa, he knew that the latter was but a vassal 
king, and may have chafed at Paul’s addressing him 
exclusively. 

The Apostle has finished his defence, and now he 
towers above the petty dignitaries before him, and goes 






; aS ee o% 


326 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ce xxv. 


straight at the conscience of the king. Festus had 
dismissed the Resurrection of ‘one Jesus’ as unim- 
portant: Paul asserted it, the Jews denied it. It was 
not worth while to ask which was right. The man was 
dead, that was agreed. If Paul said He was alive after 
death, that was only another proof of madness, and a 
Roman governor had more weighty things to oceupy 
him than investigating such obscure and absurd trifles. 
But Agrippa, though not himself a Jew, knew enough 
of the history of the last twenty years to have heard 
about the Resurrection and the rise of the Church. 
No doubt he would have been ready to admit his 
knowledge, but Paul shows a disposition to come to 
closer quarters by his swift thrust, ‘ Believest thou the 
prophets?’ and the confident answer which the ques- 
tioner gives. 

What was the Apostle bringing these two things— 
the publicity given to the facts of Christ’s life, and the 
belief in the prophets—together for? Obviously, if 
Agrippa said Yes, then the next question would be, 
‘Believest thou the Christ, whose life and death and 
resurrection thou knowest, and who has fulfilled the 
prophets thereby?’ That would have been a hard 
question for the king to answer. His conscience 
begins to be uncomfortable, and his dignity is 
wounded by this extremely rude person, who ven- 
tures to talk to him as if he were a mere common 
man. He has no better answer ready than a sarcasm ; 
not a very forcible one, betraying, however, his pene- 
tration into, and his dislike of, and his embarrassment 
at, Paul’s drift. His ironical words are no confes- 
sion of being ‘almost persuaded,’ but a taunt. ‘And 
do you really suppose that it is so easy a matter to 
turn me—the great Me, a Herod, a king, and he 





vs. 19-32] ‘GOVERNORS AND KINGS’ 827 


might have added, a sensual bad man, ‘into a 
Christian ?’ 

Paul met the sarcastic jest with deep earnestness, 
which must have hushed the audience of sycophants 
ready to laugh with the king, and evidently touched 
him and Festus. His whole soul ran over in yearning 
desire for the salvation of them all. He took no notice 
of the gibe in the word Christian, nor of the levity of 
Agrippa. He showed that purest love fills his heart, 
that he has found the treasure which enriches the 
poorest and adds blessedness to the highest. So 
peaceful and blessed is he, a prisoner, that he can wish 
nothing better for any than to be like him in his faith. 
He hints his willingness to take any pains and undergo 
any troubles for such an end; and, with almost a 
smile, he looks at his chains, and adds, ‘except these 
bonds.’ 

Did Festus wince a little at the mention of these, 
which ought not to have been on his wrists? At all 
events, the entertainment had taken rather too serious 
a turn for the taste of any of the three,—Festus, 
Agrippa, or Bernice. If this strange man was going 
to shake their consciences in that fashion, it was high 
time to end what was, after all, as far as the rendering 
of justice was concerned, something like a farce. 

So with a rustle, and amid the obeisances of the 
courtiers, the three rose, and, followed by the principal 
people, went through the form of deliberation. There 
was only one conclusion to be come to. He was per- 
fectly innocent. So Agrippa solemnly pronounced, 
what had been known before, that he had done nothing 
worthy of death or bonds, though he had ‘these bonds’ 
on his arms; and salved the injustice of keeping an 
innocent man in custody by throwing all the blame on 





328 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cs. xxv1. 


Paul himself for appealing to Cesar. But the person 
to blame was Festus, who had forced Paul to appeal 
in order to save his life. 


‘THE HEAVENLY VISION’ 


‘Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.’ 
Acts xxvi. 19. 

TuIs is Paul’s account of the decisive moment in his 
life on which all his own future, and a great deal of 
the future of Christianity and of the world, hung. 
The gracious voice had spoken from heaven, and now 
everything depended on the answer made in the heart 
of the man lying there blind and amazed. Will he 
rise melted by love, and softened into submission, or 
hardened by resistance to the call of the exalted Lord? 
The somewhat singular expression which he employs 
in the text, makes us spectators of the very process of 
his yielding. For it might be rendered, with perhaps 
an advantage, ‘I became not disobedient’; as if the 
‘disobedience’ was the prior condition, from which we 
see him in the very act of passing, by the melting of 
his nature and the yielding of his will. Surely there 
have been few decisions in the world’s history big with 
larger destinies than that which the captive deseribed 
to Agrippa in the simple words: ‘I became not dis- 
obedient unto the heavenly vision.’ 

I. Note, then, first, that this heavenly vision shines 
for us too. 

Paul throughout his whole career looked back to the 
miraculous appearance of Jesus Christ in the heavens, 
as being equally availablo as valid ground for his 


v.19} ‘THE HEAVENLY VISION’ 329 


Christian convictions as were the appearances of the 
Lord in bodily form to the Eleven after His resurrec- 
tion. And I may venture to work the parallel in the 
inverse direction, and to say to you that what we see 
and know of Jesus Christ is as valid a ground for our 
convictions, and as true and powerful a call for our 
obedience, as when the heaven was rent, and the glory 
above the midday sun bathed the persecutor and his 
followers on the stony road to Damascus. For the 
revelation that is made to the understanding and the 
heart, to the spirit and the will, is the same whether it 
be made, as it was to Paul, through a heavenly vision, 
or, as it was to the other Apostles, through the facts 
of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, 
which their senses certified to them, or, as it is to us, 
by the record of the same facts, permanently enshrined 
in Seripture. Paul’s sight of Christ was for a moment; 
we can see Him as often and as long as we will, by 
turning to the pages of this Book. Paul’s sight of 
Christ was accompanied with but a partial apprehen- 
sion of the great and far-reaching truths which he was 
to learn and to teach, as embodied in the Lord whom 
he saw. To see Him was the work of a moment, to 
‘know Him’ was the effort of a lifetime. We have 
the abiding results of the lifelong process lying ready 
to our hands in Paul’s own letters, and we have not 
only the permanent record of Christ in the Gospels 
instead of the transient vision in the heavens, and the 
unfolding of the meaning and bearings of the historical 
facts, in the authoritative teaching of the Epistles, but 
we have also, in the history of the Church founded on 
these, in the manifest workings of a divine power for 
and through the company of believers, as well as in 
the correspondence between the facts and doctrines of 





330 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xxv1. 


Christianity and the wants of humanity, a vision dis- 
closed and authenticated as heavenly, more developed, 
fuller of meaning and more blessed to the eyes which 
see it, than that which was revealed to the persecutor as 
he reeled from his horse on the way to the great city. 

Dear brethren, they who see Christ in the word, 
in the history of the world, in the pleading of the 
preacher, in the course of the ages, and who some- 
times hear His voice in the warnings which He 
breathes into their consciences, and in the illumina- 
tions which He flashes on their understanding, need 
ask for no loftier, no more valid and irrefragable 
manifestation of His gracious self. To each of us this 
vision is granted. May I say, without seeming egotism 
to you it is granted even through the dark and cloudy 
envelope of my poor words? 

II. The vision of Christ, howsoever perceived, comes 
demanding obedience. 

The purpose for which Jesus Christ made Himself 
known to Paul was to give him a charge which should 
influence his whole life. And the manner in which the 
Lord, when He had appeared, prepared the way for 
the charge was twofold. He revealed Himself in His 
radiant glory, in His exalted being, in His sympathetic 
and mysterious unity with them that loved Him and 
trusted Him, in His knowledge of the doings of the 
persecutor; and He disclosed to Saul the inmost evil 
that lurked in his own heart, and showed him to his 
bewilderment and confusion, how the course that he 
thought to be righteousness and service was blasphemy 
andsin. So, by the manifestation of Himself enthroned 
omniscient, bound by the closest ties of identity and of 
sympathy with all that love Him, and by the disclosure 
of the amazed gazer’s evil and sin, Jesus Christ opened 


v.19} ‘THE HEAVENLY VISION’ 331 


the way for the charge which bore in its very heart an 
assurance of pardon, and was itself a manifestation of 
His love. 

In like manner all heavenly visions are meant to 
secure human obedience. We have not done what God 
means us to do with any knowledge of Him which He 
grants, unless we utilise it to drive the wheels of life 
and carry it out into practice in our daily conduct. 
. Revelation is not meant to satisfy mere curiosity or 
the idle desire to know. It shines above us like the 
stars, but, unlike them, it shines to be the guide of our 
lives. And whatsoever glimpse of the divine nature, 
or of Christ’s love, nearness, and power, we have 
ever caught, was meant to bow our wills in glad sub- 
mission, and to animate our hands for diligent 
service and to quicken our feet to run in the way of 
His commandments. 

There is plenty of idle gazing, with more or less of 
belief, at the heavenly vision. I beseech you to lay to 
- heart this truth, that Christ rends the heavens and 
shows us God, not that men may know, but that men 
may, knowing, do; and all His visions are the bases of 
commandments. So the question for us all is, What 
are we doing with what we know of Jesus Christ? 
Nothing? Have we translated our thoughts of Him 
into actions, and have we put all our actions under 
the control of our thoughts of Him? It is not enough 
that a man should say, ‘Whereupon I saw the vision,’ 
or, ‘Whereupon I was convinced of the vision,’ or, 
‘Whereupon I wnderstood the vision. Sight, appre- 
hension, theology, orthodoxy, they are all very well, 
but the right result is, ‘Whereupon I was not dis- 
obedient to the heavenly vision. And unless your 
knowledge of Christ makes you do, and keep from 





382 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (en. xxv. 


doing, a thousand things, it is only an idle vision, 
which adds to your guilt. 

But notice, in this connection, the peculiarity of the 
obedience which the vision requires. There is not a 
word, in this story of Paul’s conversion, about the thing 
which Paul himself always puts in the foreground as 
the very hinge upon which conversion turns—vyiz. 
faith. Not a word. The name is not here, but the 
thing is here, if people will look. For the obedience 
which Paul says that he rendered to the vision was - 
not rendered with his hands. He got up to his feet on 
the road there, ‘not disobedient, though he had not 
yet done anything. This is to say, the man’s will had 
melted. It had all gone with a run, so to speak, and 
the inmost being of him was subdued. The obedience 
was the submission of self to God, and not the more 
or less diligent and continuous consequent external 
activity in the way of God’s commandments. 

Further, Paul’s obedience is also an obedience based 
upon the vision of Jesus Christ enthroned, living, bound 
by ties that thrill at the slightest touch to all hearts 
that love Him, and making common cause with them. 

And furthermore, it is an obedience based upon the 
shuddering recognition of Paul’s own unsuspected evil 
and foulness, how all the life, that he had thought was 
being built up into a temple that God would inhabit, 
was rottenness and falsehood. 

And it is an obedience, further, built upon the recog- 
nition of pity and pardon in Christ, who, after His 
sharp denunciation of the sin, looks down from Heaven 
with a smile of forgiveness upon His lips, and says: 
‘But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I will send thee 
to make known My name.’ 

An obedience which is the inward yielding of the 


v.19] ‘THE HEAVENLY VISION’ 333 


will, which is all built upon the revelation of the living 
Christ, who was dead and is alive for evermore, and 
close to all His followers; and is, further, the thankful 
tribute of a heart that knows itself to be sinful, and is 
certain that it is forgiven—what is that but the obedi- 
ence which is of faith? And thus, when I say that the 
heavenly vision demands obedience, I do not mean 
that Christ shows Himself to you to set you to work, 
but I mean that Christ shows Himself to you that you 
may yield yourselves to Him, and in the act may 
receive power to do all His sweet and sacred will. 

III. Thirdly, this obedience is in our own power to 
give or to withhold. 

Paul, as I said in my introductory remarks, puts us 
here as spectators of the very act of submission. He 
shows it to usin its beginning—he shows us the state 
from which he came and that into which he passed, 
and he tells us, ‘I became—not disobedient.’ In his 
case it was a complete, swift, and permanent revolu- 
tion, as if some thick-ribbed ice should all at once melt 
into sweet water. But whether swift or slow it was 
his own act, and after the Voice had spoken it was 
possible that Paul should have resisted and risen from 
the ground, not a servant, but a persecutor still. For 
God’s grace constrains no man, and there is always 
the possibility open that when He calls we refuse, and 
that when He beseeches we say, ‘I will not.’ 

There is the mystery on which the subtlest intellects 
have tasked their powers and blunted the edge of their 
keenness in all generations; and it is not likely to be 
settled in five minutes of a sermon of mine. But the 
practical point that I have to urge is simply this: 
there are two mysteries, the one that men can, and 
the other that men do, resist Christ's pleading voice. 





334 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xxvi 


As to the former, we cannot fathom it. But do not let 
any difficulty deaden to you the clear voice of your 
own consciousness. If I cannot trust my sense that I 
can do this thing or not do it, as I choose, there is 
nothing that I can trust. Will is the power of deter- 
mining which of two roads I shall go, and, strange as 
it is, incapable of statement in any more general terms 
than the reiteration of the fact; yet here stands the 
fact, that God, the infinite Will, has given to men, 
whom He made in His own image, this inexplicable 
and awful power of coinciding with or opposing His 
purposes and His voice. 

‘Our wills are ours, we know not how; 

Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.’ 

For the other mystery is, that men do consciously 
set themselves against the will of God, and refuse the 
gifts which they know all the while are for their good. 
It is of no use to say that sin is ignorance. No; that is 
only a surface explanation. You and I know too well 
that many a time when we have been as sure of what 
God wanted us to do as if we had seen it written in 
flaming letters on the sky there, we have gone and 
done the exact opposite. I know that there are men 
and women who are convinced in their inmost souls 
that they ought to be Christians, and that Jesus Christ 
is pleading with them at the present hour, and yet in 
whose hearts there is no yielding to what, they yet 
are certain, is the will and voice of Jesus Christ. 

IV. Lastly, this obedience may, in a moment, revolu- 
tionise a life. 

Paul rode from Jerusalem ‘breathing out threaten- 
ings and slaughters.’ He fell from his warhorse, a 
persecutor of Christians, and a bitter enemy of Jesus. 
A few moments pass. There was one moment in 


v.19] ‘THE HEAVENLY VISION’ 335 


which the crucial decision was made; and he staggered 
to his feet, loving all that he had hated, and abandon- 
ing all in which he had trusted. His own doctrine 
that ‘if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old 
things are passed away and all things are become new, 
is but a generalisation of what befell himself on the 
Damascus road. It is of no use trying to say that there 
had been a warfare going on in this man’s mind long 
before, of which his complete capitulation was only 
the final visible outcome. There is not a trace of any- 
thing of the kind in the story. It is a pure hypothesis 
pressed into the service of the anti-supernatural ex- 
planation of the fact. 

There are plenty of analogies of such sudden and 
entire revolution. All reformation of a moral kind is 
best done quickly. It is a very hopeless task, as every 
one knows, to tell a drunkard to break off his habits 
gradually. There must be one moment in which he 
definitely turns himself round and sets his face in 
the other direction. Some things are best done with 
slow, continuous pressure; other things need to be 
done with a wrench if they are to be done at all. 

There used to be far too much insistence upon one 
type of religious experience, and all men that were 
to be recognised as Christians were, by evangelical 
Nonconformists, required to be able to point to the 
moment when, by some sudden change, they passed 
from darkness to light. We have drifted away from 
that very far now, and there is need for insisting, not 
upon the necessity, but upon the possibility, of sudden 
conversions. However some may try to show that 
such experiences cannot be, the experience of every 
earnest Christian teacher can answer—well! whether 
they can be or not, they are. Jesus Christ cured two 


336 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cs. xxv1 


men gradually, and all the others instantaneously. No 
doubt, for young people who have been born amidst 
Christian influences, and have grown up in Christian 
households, the usual way of becoming Christians is 
that slowly and imperceptibly they shall pass into the 
consciousness of communion with Jesus Christ. But 
for people who have grown up irreligious and, per- 
haps, profligate and sinful, the most probable way is a 
sudden stride out of the kingdom of darkness into the 
kingdom of God’s dear Son. So I come to you all with 
this message. No matter what your past, no matter 
how much of your life may have ebbed away, no 
matter how deeply rooted and obstinate may be your 
habits of evil, no matter how often you may have tried 
to mend yourself and have failed, it is possible by one 
swift act of surrender to break the chains and go free. 
In every man’s life there have been moments into 
which years have been crowded, and which have put a 
wider gulf between his past and his present self than 
many slow, languid hours can dig. A great sorrow, a 
great joy, a great, newly discerned truth, a great re- 
solve will make ‘one day as a thousand years. Men 
live through such moments and feel that the past is 
swallowed up as by an earthquake. The highest in- 
stance of thus making time elastic and crowding it with 
meaning is when a man forms and keeps the swift 
resolve to yield himself to Christ. It may be the work 
of a moment, but it makes a gulf between past and 
future, like that which parted the time before and 
the time after that in which ‘God said, Let there be 
light: and there was light. If you have never yet 
bowed before the heavenly vision and yielded your- 
self as conquered by the love which pardons, to be 
the glad servant of the Lord Jesus who takes all His 


v. 19] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 337 


servants into wondrous oneness with Himself, do it 
now. Youcandoit. Delay is disobedience, and may be 
death. Do it now, and your whole life will be changed. 
Peace and joy and power will come to you, and you, 
made a new man, will move in a new world of new 
relations, duties, energies, loves, gladnesses, helps, and 
hopes. If you take heed to prolong the point into a 
line, and hour by hour to renew the surrender and the 
ery, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ you will 
ever have the vision of the Christ enthroned, pardon- 
ing, sympathising, and commanding, which will fill 
your sky with glory, point the path of your feet, and 
satisfy your gaze with His beauty, and your heart 
with His all-sufficing and ever-present love. 


‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 


‘Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.’ 
ACTS xXxvi. 28. 


Tus Agrippa was son of the other Herod of whom we 
hear in the Acts as a persecutor. This one appears, 
from other sources, to have had the vices but not 
the force of character of his bad race. He was weak 
and indolent, a mere hanger-on of Rome, to which he 
owed his kingdom, and to which he stoutly stuck 
during all the tragedy of the fall of Jerusalem. In 
position and in character (largely resulting from the 
position) he was uncommonly like those semi-inde- 
pendent rajahs in India, who are allowed to keep up 
a kind of shadow of authority on condition of doing 
what Calcutta bids them. Of course frivolity and 
debauchery become the business »f such men. What 
VOL, I. bs 


a” Leta Vi + oe 
ued sh! 


_ 


338 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xxv1. 


sort of a man this was may be sufficiently inferred 
from the fact that Bernice was his sister, 

But he knew a “good “deal about the Jews, about 
their opinions, their religion, and about what had 
been going on during the last half century amongst 
them. On grounds of policy he professed to accept 
the Jewish faith—of which an edifying example is 
given in the fact that, on one occasion, Bernice was 
prevented from accompanying him to Rome because 
she was fulfilling a Nazarite vow in the Temple at 
Jerusalem ! 

So the Apostle was fully warranted in appealing to 
Agrippa’s knowledge, not only of Judaism, but of the 
history of Jesus Christ, and in his further assertion, 
‘I know that thou believest.’ But the home-thrust 
was too much fo for the ‘king. His answer is given in 
the words of our text. 

They are very familiar words, and they have been 
made the basis of a great many sermons upon being 
all but persuaded to accept of Christ as Saviour. But, 
edifying as such a use of them is, it can scarcely be 
sustained by their actual meaning. Most commen- 
tators are agreed that our Authorised Version does 
not represent “either Agrippa’s words” or his tone. He 
was not speaking in earnest. His words are sarcasm, 
not a half melting into conviction, and the Revised 
Version gives what may, on the whole, be accepted 
as being a truer representation of their intention when 
it reads, ‘With but little persuasion thou wouldst fain 
make me a Christian.’ 

He is half amused and half angry at the Apostle’s 
presumption in supposing that so easily or so quickly 
he was going to land his fish. ‘It is a more difficult 
task than you fancy, Paul, to make a Christian 0: of a 


—-———— 


\ 


Pere ees ee 
we ines oats Noli 


v.28] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 339 


man like me.’ That is the real meaning of his words, 
and I think that, rightly understood, they yield lessons 
of no less value than those that have been so often 
drawn from them as they appear in our Authorised 
Version. So I wish to try and gather up and urge 
upon you now these lessons :— 

I. First, then, I see here an example of the danger 
of a superficial familiarity with Christian truth. 

As I said, Agrippa knew, in a general way, a good 
deal not only about the prophets and the Jewish 
religion, but of the outstanding facts of the death and 
Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul's assumption that 
he knew would have been very quickly repudiated if 
it had not been based upon fact. And the inference 
from his acceptance without contradiction of the 
Apostle’s statement is confirmed by his use of the 
word ‘Christian, which had by no means come into 
general employment when he spoke; and in itself 
indicates that he knew a good deal about the people 
who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, 
between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. 
To Festus, Paul’s talking about a dead man’s having 
risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, 
was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic 
Roman contempt for men with ideas, he breaks in, 
with his rough, strident voice, ‘Much learning has 
made thee mad.’ There was not much chance of that 
cause producing that effect on Festus. But he was 
apparently utterly bewildered at this entirely novel 
and unintelligible sort of talk. Agrippa, on the other 
hand, knows all about the Resurrection; has heard 


that fhete was mach a th thing, a and has a general rough 


notion of what Paul believed as a Christian. 
And was he any better for it? No; he was a ab 


i = 





340 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu xxvi. 


deal worse. It took the edge off a good deal of his 
curiosity. It made him fancy that he ie knew new before- 
hand all that the Apostle had to say. “Tt: stood i in the 
way of his apprehending the truths whic which he > thought 
that he understood. 

And although the world knows a great deal more 
about Jesus Christ and the Gospel than he did, the 
very same thing is true about hundreds and thousands 
of people who have all their lives long been brought 
into contact with Christianity. Superficial knowledge 
is the worst enemy of accurate knowledge, for the 
first condition of knowing a thing is to know that we 
do not know it. And so there are a great many of 
us who, having picked up since childhood vague and 
partially inaccurate notions about Christ and His 
Gospel and what He has done, are so satisfied on the 
strength of these that we know all about it, that 
we listen to preaching about it with a very languid 
attention. The ground in our minds is preoccupied 
with our own vague and imperfect apprehensions. I 
believe that there is nothing that stands more in the 
way of hundreds of people coming into real intelligent 
contact with Gospel truth than the half knowledge 
that they have had of it ever since they were children. 
You fancy that_you know all that I can tell you. 
Very probably you do. But have you ever taken a 
firm hold of the plain central facts of Chri istianity— 
your own sinfulness and helplessness, your need of a 
Saviour, the perfect work of Jesus Christ who died 
on the Cross for you, and the power of simple faith 
therein to join you to Him, and, if followed by conse- 
cration and obedience, to make you partakers of His 
nature, and heirs of the inheritance that is above? 
These are but the ‘fundamentals, the outlines of 


: 





v. 28] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 341 


Gospel truth. But far too many of you see them, in 
such a manner as you see the figures cast upon a 
screen when the lantern is not rightly focussed, with 
a blurred outline, and the blurred outline keeps you 
from seeing the sharp-cut truth as it is in Jesus. In 
all regions of thought inaccurate knowledge is the 
worst foe to further understanding, and eminently is 
this the case in religion. Brethren, some of you are 
in that position. 

Then there is another way in which such knowledge 
as that of which the king in our text is an example is 
a hindrance, and that is, that it is knowledge which 
has no effect on character. What do hundreds of us 
ee ae ee ae) 
do with our knowledge of Christianity? Our minds 
seem built in watertight compartments, and we keep 
the doors of them shut very close, so that truths in 
the understanding have no influence on the will. 
Many of you believe the Gospel intellectually, and it 
does not make a hairsbreadth of difference to any- 
thing that you ever either thought or wished or did. 
And because you so believe it, it is utterly impossible 
that it should ever be of any use to you. ‘Agrippa, 
believest thou the prophets? I know that thou be- 
Hevest. Seka (ei eo and Bernice 





livest in utter bestia 1 godlessness.” Wink: is the eed 
of a Hovis of Christianity like that? And is it 
not such knowledge of Christianity that blocks the 
way with some of you for anything more real and 
more operative? There is nothing more impotent than 
a firmly believed and utterly neglected truth. And 
that is what the Christianity of some of you is when 
it is analysed. 

II. Now, secondly, notice how we have here the 





342 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxv1. 


example of a proud man indignantly recoiling from 
submission. - 

There is a world of contempt in Agrippa’s words, in 
the very putting side by side of the two things. ‘Me! 
Me, with a very large capital M—‘Me a Christian ?’ 
He thinks of his dignity, poor creature. It was not 
such a very tremendous dignity after all. He was a 
petty kinglet, permitted by the grace of Rome to live 
and to pose as if he were the real thing, and yet he 
struts and claps his wings and crows on his little 
hillock as if it were a mountain. ‘Me a Christian?’ 
‘The great Agrippa a Christian!’ And he uses that 
word ‘Christian’ with the intense contempt which 
coined it and adhered to it, until the men to whom 
it was applied were wise enough to take it and bind 
it as a crown of honour upon their head. The wits 
at Antioch first of all hit upon the designation. They 
meant a very exquisite piece of sarcasm by their nick- 
name. These people were ‘Christians, just as some 
other people were Herodians—Christ’s men, the men 
of this impostor who pretended to be a Messiah. That 
seemed such an intensely ludicrous thing to the wise 
people in Antioch that they coined the name; and no 
doubt thought they had done a very clever thing. It is 
only used in the Bible in the notice of its origin; 
here, with a very evident connotation of contempt; 
and once more when Peter in his letter refers to 
it as being the indictment on which certain disciples 
suffered. So when Agrippa says, ‘Me a Christian,’ he 
puts all the bitterness that he can into that last word. 
As if he said, ‘Do you really think that I—I—am going 
to bow myself down to be a follower and adherent 
of that Christ of yours? The thing is too ridiculous! 
With but little persuasion you would fain make me 


v. 28] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 343 


a Christian. But you will find it a harder task than 
you fancy.’ 

Now, my dear friends, the shape of this unwilling- 
ness is changed but the fact of it remains. There 
are two or three features of what I take to be the 
plain Gospel of Jesus Christ which grate very much 
against all self-importance and self-complacency, and 
operate very largely, though not always consciously, 
upon very many amongst us. I just run them over, 
very briefly. 

The Gospel insists on dealing with everybody in the 
same fashion, and on regarding all as standing on the 
same level. Many of us do not like that. Translate 
Agrippa’s scorn into words that fit ourselves: ‘I am a 
well-to-do Manchester man. Am I to stand on the 
same level as my office-boy?’ Yes! the very same. ‘I, 
a student, perhaps a teacher of science, or a cultivated 
man, a scholar, a lawyer, a professional man—am I to 
stand on the same level as people that scarcely know 
how to read and write?’ Yes, exactly. So, like the 
man in the Old Testament, ‘he turned and went away 
in a rage. Many of us would like that there should 
be a little private door for us in consideration of 
our position or acquirements or respectability, or this, 
that, or the other thing. At any rate we are not to 
be classed in the same category with the poor and the 
ignorant and the sinful and the savage all over the 
world. But we are so classed. Do not you and the 
men in Patagonia breathe the same air? Are not your 
bodies subject to the same laws? Have you not to 
be contented to be fed in the same fashion, and to 
sleep and eat and drink in the same way? ‘We 
have all of us one human heart’; and ‘there is no 
difference, for all have sinned and come short of the 





344 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xxv. 


glory of God.’ The identities of humanity, in all its 
examples, are deeper than the differences in any. We 
have all the one Saviour and are to be saved in the 
same fashion. That isa humbling thing for those of us 
who stand upon some little elevation, real or fancied, 
but it is only the other side of the great truth that 
God’s love is world-wide, and that Christ’s Gospel is 
meant for humanity. Naaman, to whom I have already 
referred in passing, wanted to be treated as a great 
man who happened to be a leper; Elisha insisted on 
treating him as a leper who happened to be a great 
man. And that makes all the difference. I remember 
seeing somewhere that a great surgeon had said that 
the late Emperor of Germany would have had a far 
better chance of being cured if he had gone incognito 
to the hospital for throat diseases. We all need the 
same surgery, and we must be contented to take it in 
the same fashion. So, some of us recoil from humbling 
equality with the lowest and worst. 

Then again, another thing that sometimes makes 
people shrink back from the Gospel is that it insists 
upon every one being saved solely by dependence on 
Another. We would like to have a part in our sal- 
vation, and many of us had rather do anything in 
the way of sacrifice or suffering or penance than take 
this position : 

‘ Nothing in my hand I bring, 
Simply to Thy Cross I cling.’ 


Corrupt forms of Christianity have taken an acute 
measure of the worst parts of human nature, when 
they have taught men that they can eke out Christ's 
work by their own, and have some kind of share in 
their own salvation. Dear brethren, I have to bring 


v. 28] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 345 


to you another Gospel than that, and to say, All is 
done for us, and all will be done in us, and nothing 
has to be done by us. Some of you do not like 
that. Just as a man drowning is almost sure to 
try to help himself, and get his limbs inextricably 
twisted round his would-be rescuer and drown them 
both, so men will not, without a struggle, consent 
to owe everything to Jesus Christ, and to let Him 
draw them out of many waters and set them on the 
safe shore. But unless we do so, we have little share 
in His Gospel. 

And another thing stands in the way—namely, that 
the Gospel insists upon absolute obedience to Jesus 
Christ. Agrippa fancied that it was an utterly pre- 
posterous idea that he should lower his flag, and doff 
his crown, and become the servant of a Jewish peasant. 
A great many of us, though we have a higher idea of 
our Lord than his, do yet find it quite as hard to 
submit our wills to His, and to accept the condition 
of absolute obedience, utter resignation to Him, and 
entire subjection to His commandment. We say, ‘Let 
my own will have a little bit of play in a corner,’ 
Some of us find it very hard to believe that we are 
to bring all our thinking upon religious and moral 
subjects to Him, and to accept His word as conclusive, 
settling all controversies. ‘I, with my culture; am I 
to accept what Christ says as the end of strife?’ Yes, 
absolute submission is the plainest condition of real 
Christianity. The very name tells us that. We are 
Christians, 7.e. Christ's men; and unless we are, we have 
no right to the name. But some of us had rather be 
our own masters and enjoy the miseries of indepen- 
dence and self-will, and so be the slaves of our worse 
selves, than bow ourselves utterly before that dear 





346 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cx. xxvr. 


Lord, and so pass into the freedom of a service love- 
inspired, and by love accepted. ‘Thou wouldst fain 
persuade me to be a Christian,’ is the recoil of a proud 
heart from submission. Brethren, let me beseech you 
that it may not be yours. 

III. Again, we have here an example of instinctive 
shrinking from the personal application of broad 
truths. 

Agrippa listened, half-amused and a good deal in- 
terested, to Paul as long as he talked generalities 
and described his own experience. But when he came 
to point the generalities and to drive them home to 
the hearer’s heart it was time to stop him. That 
question of the Apostle’s, keen and sudden as the 
flash of a dagger, went straight home, and the king 
at once gathered himself together into an attitude of 
resistance. Ah, that is what hundreds of people do! 
You will let me preach as long as I like—only you 
will get a little weary sometimes—you will let me 
preach generalities ad libitum. But when I come to 
‘And thou?’ then I am ‘rude’ and ‘inquisitorial’ and 
‘personal’ and ‘trespassing on a region where I have 
no business,’ and so on and so on. And so you shut 
up your heart if not your ears. 

And yet, brethren, what is the use of toothless 
generalities? What am I here for if Iam not here 
to take these broad, blunt truths and sharpen them 
to a point, and try to get them in between the joints 
of your armour? Can any man faithfully preach the 
Gospel who is always flying over the heads of his 
hearers with universalities, and never goes straight 
to their hearts with ‘Thou—thou art the man!’ 
‘Believest thou?’ 

And so, dear friends, let me press that question 


v. 28] ‘ME A CHRISTIAN!’ 347 


upon you. Never mind about other people. Suppose 
you and I were alone together and my words were 
coming straight to thee. Would they not have more 
power than they have now? They are so coming. 
Think away all these other people, and this place, ay, 
and me too, and let the word of Christ, which deals 
with no crowds but with single souls, come to you in 


its individualising force: ‘Believest thow?’ You will 


have to answer that question one day. Better to face. 


it now and try to answer it than to leave it all vague 
until you get yonder, where ‘each one of us shall give 
account of himself to God.’ 

IV. Lastly, we have here an example of a soul close 
to the light, but passing into the dark. 

Agrippa listens to Paul; Bernice listens; Festus 
listens. And what comes of it? Only this, ‘And 
when they were gone aside, they talked between them- 
selves, saying, This man hath done nothing worthy 
of death or of bonds. May I translate into a modern 
equivalent: And when they were gone aside, they 
talked between themselves, saying, ‘This man preached 
a very impressive sermon, or, ‘This man preached a 
very wearisome sermon, and there an end. 

Agrippa and Bernice went their wicked way, and 
Festus went his, and none of them knew what a fate- 
ful moment they had passed through. Ah, brethren! 
there are many such in our lives when we make 
decisions th that influence our whole future, and no sign 
shows that the_ moment is any way different from 
millions of its undistinguished fellows. It is eminently 
so in regard to our relation to Jesus Christ and His 
Gospel. These three had been in the light; they were 
never so near it again. Probably they never heard 
the Gospel preached any more, and they went away, 


348 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xxvu. 


not knowing what they had done when they silenced 
Paul and left him. Now you will probably hear 

ee ee 
plenty of sermons in future. You may or r you may 


not. But be sure of this, that if you go away ray from 


this one, unmelted and unbelieving, you haye not 


done a trivial thing. You have added one more. 
stone to the barrier that you yourself build to shut 


you out from holiness and happiness, from hope 
and heaven. It is not a that ask you the question, 


to you, as He said to the “blind man, ‘Dost thou 
believe on the Son of God?’ or as He said to the 
weeping sister of Lazarus, ‘Believest thou this?’ O 
dear friends, do not answer like this arrogant bit 
of a king, but cry with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help 
Thou mine unbelief !’ 


TEMPEST AND TRUST 


And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their 
purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. 14. But not long after there 
arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. 15. And when the 
ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. 
16. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much 
work to come by the boat: 17. Which when they had taken up, they used helps, 
undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, 
strake sail, and so were driven. 18. And we being exceedingly tossed with a 
tempest, the next day they lightened the ship; 19. And the third day we cast out 
with our own hands the tackling of the ship. 20. And when neither sun nor stars 
in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should 
be saved was then taken away. 21. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth 
in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not 
have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. 22. And now I 
exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among 
you, but of the ship. 23. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose 
I am, and whom I serve, 24. Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought 
before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. 25. 
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it 
was told me. 26. Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.’-—AcTs 
XXvii. 13-26. 


LUKE’s minute account of the shipwreck implies that — 


he was \not a Jew. His interest in the sea and 


\ 





‘ 
5 
: 
‘ 
; 
‘ 





vs. 13-26] TEMPEST AND TRUST 349 


familiarity with sailors’ terms are quite unlike a 
persistent Jewish characteristic which still continues. 
We have a Jew’s description of a storm at sea in the 
Book of Jonah, which is as evidently the work of a 
landsman as Luke’s is of one who, though not a sailor, 
was well up in maritime matters. His narrative lays 
hold of the essential points, and is as accurate as it is 
vivid. This section has two parts: the account of the 
storm, and the grand example of calm trust and cheery 
encouragement given in Paul’s words. 

I. The consultation between the captain of the 
vessel and the centurion, at which Paul assisted, 
strikes us, with our modern notions of a captain’s 
despotic power on his own deck, and single responsi- 
bility, as unnatural. But the centurion, as a military 
officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian 
corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of 
character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took 
part in the discussion. Naturally the centurion was 
guided by the professional rather than by the amateur 
member of the council, and the decision was come to 
to push on as far and fast as possible. 

The ship was lying in a port which gave scanty 
protection against the winter weather, and it was 
clearly wise to reach a more secure harbour if possible. 
So when a gentle southerly breeze sprang up, which 
would enable them to make such a port, westward 
from their then position, they made the attempt. For 
a time it looked as if they would succeed, but they 
had a great headland jutting out in front which they 
must get round, and their ability to do this was 
doubtful. So they kept close in shore and weathered 
the point. But before they had made their harbour 
the wind suddenly chopped round, as is frequent off 


350 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xxvin _ 


that coast, and the gentle southerly breeze turned into 
a fierce squall from the north-east or thereabouts, 
sweeping down from the Cretan mountains. That 
began their troubles. To make the port was impossible. 
The unwieldy vessel could not ‘face the wind, and so 
they had to run before it. It would carry them in a 
south-westerly direction, and towards a small island, 
under the lee of which they might hope for some 
shelter. Here they had a little breathing time, and 
could make things rather more ship-shape than they 
had been able to do when suddenly caught by the 
squall. Their boat had been towing behind them, and 
had to be hoisted on deck somehow. 

A more important, and probably more difficult, task 
was to get strong hawsers under the keel and round 
the sides, so as to help to hold the timbers together. 
The third thing was the most important of all, and 
has been misunderstood by commentators who knew 
more about Greek lexicons than ships. The most likely 
explanation of ‘lowering the gear’ (Rev. Ver.) is that 
it means ‘leaving up just enough of sail to keep the 
ship’s head to the wind, and bringing down every- 
thing else that could be got down’ (Ramsay, St. Paul, 
p. 329). 

Note that Luke says ‘ we’ about hauling in the boat, 
and ‘they’ about the other tasks. He and the other 
passengers could lend a hand in the former, but not in 
the latter, which required more skilled labour. The 
reason for bringing down all needless top-hamper, and 
leaving up a little sail, was to keep the vessel from 
driving on to the great quicksands off the African 
coast, to which they would certainly have been carried 
if the wind held. 

As soon as they had drifted out from the lee of the 






vs. 13-26] TEMPEST AND TRUST 351 


friendly little island they were caught again in the 
storm. They were in danger of going down. As they 
drifted they had their ‘starboard’ broadside to the 
force of the wild sea, and it was a question how long 
the vessel’s sides would last before they were stove in 
by the hammering of the waves, or how long she 
would be buoyant enough to ship seas without founder- 
ing. The only chance was to lighten her, so first the 
crew ‘jettisoned’ the cargo, and next day, as that did 
not give relief enough, ‘they, or, according to some 
authorities, ‘we ’—that is passengers and all—threw 
everything possible overboard. 

That was the last attempt to save themselves, and 
after it there was nothing to do but to wait the appar- 
ently inevitable hour when they would all go down 
together. Idleness feeds despair, and despair nourishes 
idleness. Food was scarce, cooking it was impossible, 
appetite there was none. The doomed men spent the 
long idle days—which were scarcely day, so thick was 
the air with mist and foam and tempest—crouching 
anywhere for shelter, wet, tired, hungry, and hopeless. 
So they drifted ‘for many days,’ almost losing count 
of the length of time they had been thus. It was a 
gloomy company, but there was one man there in 
whom the lamp of hope burned when it had gone out 
in all others. Sun and stars were hidden, but Paul saw 
a better light, and his sky was clear and calm. 

II. A common danger makes short work of distinc- 
tions of rank. In such a time some hitherto unnoticed 
man of prompt decision, resource, and confidence, 
will take the command, whatever his position. Hope, 
as well as timidity and fear, is infectious, and one 
cheery voice will revive the drooping spirits of a 
multitude. Paul had already established his personal 





352 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu.xxvu. 


ascendency in that motley company of Roman soldiers, 
prisoners, sailors, and disciples. Now he stands for- 
ward with calm confidence, and infuses new hope into 
them all. What a miraculous change passes on 
externals when faith looks at them! The circum- 
stances were the same as they had been for many 
days. The wind was howling and the waves pounding 
as before, the sky was black with tempest, and no sign 
of help was in sight, but Paul spoke, and all was 
changed, and a ray of sunshine fell on the wild waters 
that beat on the doomed vessel. 

Three points are conspicuous in his strong tonic 
words. First, there is the confident assurance of safety. 
A less noble nature would have said more in yindica- 
tion of the wisdom of his former advice. It is very 
pleasant to small minds to say, ‘Did I not tell you 
so? You see how right I was.’ But the Apostle did 
not care for petty triumphs of that sort. A smaller 
man might have sulked because his advice had not 
been taken, and have said to himself, ‘ They would not 
listen to me before, I will hold my tongue now. But 
the Apostle only refers to his former counsel and its 
confirmation in order to induce acceptance of his 
present words. 

It is easy to ‘bid’ men ‘be of good cheer,’ but futile 
unless some reason for good cheer is given. Paul gave 
good reason. No man’s life was to be lost though the 
ship was to go. He had previously predicted that life, 
as well as ship and lading, would be lost if they put to 
sea. That opinion was the result of his own calcula- 
tion of probabilities, as he lets us understand by saying 
that he ‘perceived’ it (ver. 10). Now he speaks with 
authority, not from his perception, but from God's 
assurance. The bold words might well seem folly 


vs. 13-26] TEMPEST AND TRUST 353 


to the despairing crew as they caught them amidst 
the roar of tempest and looked at their battered hulk. 
So Paul goes at once to tell the ground of his con- 
fidence—the assurance of the angel of God. 

What a contrast between the furious gale, the almost 
foundering ship, the despair in the hearts of the sleep- 
ing company, and the bright vision that came to Paul! 
Peter in prison, Paul in Czsarea and now in the storm, 
see the angel form calm and radiant. God’s messengers 
are wont to come into the darkest of our hours and the 
wildest of our tempests. 

Paul’s designation of the heavenly messenger as ‘an 
angel of the God whose I am, whom also I serve,’ 
recalls Jonah’s confession of faith, but far surpasses it, 
in the sense of belonging to God, and in the ardour of 
submission and of active obedience, expressed in it. 
What Paul said to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vi. 19) 
he realised for himself: ‘Ye are not your own; for ye 
were bought with a price.’ To recognise that we are 
God’s, joyfully to yield ourselves to Him, and with all 
the forces of our natures to serve Him, is to bring His 
angel to our sides in every hour of tempest and peril, 
and to receive assurance that nothing shall by any 
means harm us. To yield ourselves to be God’s is to 
make God ours. It was because Paul owned that he 
belonged to God, and served Him, that the angel came 
to him, and he explains the vision to his hearers by 
his relation to God. Anything was possible rather 
than that his God should leave him unhelped at such 
an hour of need. 

The angel’s message must have included particulars 
unnoticed in Luke’s summary; as, for instance, the 
wreck on ‘a certain island.’ But the two salient points 
in it are the certainty of Paul’s own preservation, that 

VOL. II. Z 


354 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn xxvm. | 


the divine purpose of his appearing before Czesar might 
be fulfilled, and the escape of all the ship’s company. 
As to the former, we may learn how Paul's life, like 
every man’s, is shaped according to a divine plan, and 
how we are ‘immortal till our work is done,’ and till 
God has done His work in and onand by us. As to the 
latter point, we may gather from the word ‘has given’ 
the certainty that Paul had been praying for the lives 
of all that sailed with him, and may learn, not only that 
the prayers of God’s servants are a real element in 
determining God’s dealings with men, but that a 
true servant of God’s will ever reach out his desires 
and widen his prayers to embrace those with whom he 
is brought into contact, be they heathens, persecutors, 
rough and careless, or fellow-believers. If Christian 
people more faithfully discharged the duty of inter- 
cession, they would more frequently receive in answer 


the lives of ‘all them that sail with’ them over the 


stormy ocean of life. 


The third point in the Apostle’s encouraging speech 


is the example of his own faith, which is likewise an 
exhortation to the hearers to exercise the same. If 
God speaks by His angel with such firm promises, man’s 
plain wisdom is to grasp the divine assurance with a 
firm hand. We must build rock upon rock. ‘I believe 
God, that surely is a credence demanded by common 
sense and warranted by the sanest reason. If we do so 
believe, and take His word as the infallible authority 
revealing present duty and future blessings, then, how- 
ever lowering the sky, and wild the water, and battered 
the vessel, and empty of earthly succour the gloomy 
horizon, and heavy our hearts, we shall ‘be of good 
cheer,’ and in due time the event will warrant our 
faith in God and His promise, even though all around 






v.23] A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH 355 


us seems to make our faith folly and our hope a 
mockery. 


A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH 


«. .. There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I 
serve.’—AOTS xxvii. 23. 


'I TURN especially to those last words, ‘Whose I am 
and whom I serve.’ 

A great calamity, borne by a crowd of men in 
common, has a wonderful power of dethroning officials 
and bringing the strong man to the front. So it is 
extremely natural, though it has been thought to be 
very unhistorical, that in this story of Paul’s ship- 
wreck he should become guide, counsellor, inspirer, 
and a tower of strength; and that centurions and 
captains and all the rest of those who held official 
positions should shrink into the background. The 
natural force of his character, the calmness and 
serenity that came from his faith—these things made 
him the leader of the bewildered crowd. One can 
searcely help contrasting this shipwreck—the only 
one in the New Testament—with that in the Old 
Testament. Contrast Jonah with Paul, the guilty 
stupor of the one, down ‘in the sides of the ship’ 

cowering before the storm, with the calm behaviour 
- and collected courage of the other. 

The vision of which the Apostle speaks does not 
concern us here, but in the words which I have read 
there are several noteworthy points. They bring 
vividly before us the essence of true religion, the bold 
confession which it prompts, and the calmness and 
security which it ensures. Let us then look at them 
from these points of view. 





356 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ([(ca. xxvm. 


I. We note the clear setting forth of the essence of 
true religion. 

Remember that Paul is speaking to heathens; that 
his present purpose is not to preach the Gospel, but to 
make his own position clear. So he says ‘the God’— 
never mind who He is at present—‘ the God to whom I 
belong ’—that covers all the inward life—‘and whom I 
serve —that covers all the outward. 

‘Whose I am.’ That expresses the universal truth 
that men belong to God by virtue of their being the 
creatures of His hand. As the 100th Psalm says, 
according to one, and that a probably correct reading, 
‘It is He that hath made us, and we are His. But the 
Apostle is going a good deal deeper than any such 
thoughts, which he, no doubt, shared in common with 
the heathen men around him, when he declares that, 
in a special fashion, God had claimed him for His, and 
he had yielded to the claim. ‘I am Thine, is the 
deepest thought of this man’s mind and the deepest 
feeling of his heart. And that is godliness in its 
purest form, the consciousness of belonging to God. 
We must interpret this saying by others of the 
Apostle’s, such as, ‘Ye are not your own, ye are 
bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your 
bodies and spirits which are His. He traces God's 
possession of him, not to that fact of creation (which 
establishes a certain outward relationship, but nothing 
more), nor even to the continuous facts of benefits 
showered upon his head, but to the one transcen- 
dent act of the divine Love, which gave itself to us, 
and so acquired us for itself. For we must recognise 
as the deepest of all thoughts about the relations of 
spiritual beings, that, asin regard to ourselves in our 
earthly affections, so in regard to our relations with 


v.23] A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH 357 


God, there is only one way by which a spirit can own 
a spirit, whether it be a man on the one side and a 
woman on the other, or whether it be God on the one 
side and a man on the other, and that one way is by 
the sweetness of complete and reciprocal love. He 
who gives himself to God gets God for himself. So 
when Paul said, ‘Whose I am, he was thinking that 
he would never have belonged either to God or to 
himself unless, first of all, God, in His own Son, had 
given Himself to Paul. The divine ownership of us 
is only realised when we are consciously His, because 
of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

Brethren, God does not count that a man belongs to 
Him simply because He made him, if the man does 
not feel his dependence, his obligation, and has not 
surrendered himself. He in the heavens loves you and 
me too well to care for a formal and external owner- 
ship. He desires hearts, and only they who have 
yielded themselves unto God, moved thereto by the 
mercies of God, and especially by the encyclopzdiacal 
merey which includes all the rest in its sweep, only 
they belong to Him, in the estimate of the heavens. 

And if you and I are His, then that involves that 
we have deposed from his throne the rebel Self, the 
ancient Anarch that disturbs and ruins us. They who 
belong to God cease to live to themselves. There are 
two centres for human life, and I believe there are 
only two—the one is God, the other is my wretched 
self. And if we are swept, as it were, out of the little 
orbit that we move in, when the latter is our centre, 
and are drawn by the weight and mass of the great 
central sun to become its satellites, then we move ina 
nobler orbit and receive fuller and more blessed light 
and warmth. They who have themselves for their 





358 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ea xxv. 


centres are like comets, with a wide elliptical course, 
which carries them away out into the cold abysses of 
darkness. They who have God for their sun are like 
planets. The old fable is true of these ‘sons of the 
morning ’—they make music as they roll and they 
flash back His light. 

And then do not let us forget that this yielding of 
one’s self to Him, swayed by His love, and this sur- 
rendering of will and purpose and affection and all 
that makes up our complex being, lead directly to 
the true possession of Him and the true possession of 
ourselves. 

I have said that the only way by which spirit 
possesses spirit is by love, and that it must needs be 
on both sides. So we get God for ourselves when we 
give ourselves to God. There is a wonderful alterna- 
tion of giving and receiving between the loving God 
and his beloved lovers; first the impartation of the 
divine to the human, then the surrender of the 
human to the divine, and then the larger gift of God 
to man, just as in some series of mirrors the light is 
flashed back from the one to the other, in bewildering 
manifoldness and shimmering of rays from either 
polished surface. God is ours when we are God's. 
‘And this is the covenant that I will make with them 
after these days, saith the Lord. I will be their God, 
and they shall be My people.’ 

And, in like manner, we never own ourselves until we 
have given ourselves to God. Each of us is like some 
feudatory prince, dependent upon an overlord. His 
subjects in his little territory rebel, and he has no 
power to subdue the insurgents, but he can send a 
message to the capital, and get the army of the king, 
who is his sovereign and theirs, to come down and 


v.23] A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH 359 


bring them back to order, and establish his tottering 
throne. So if you desire to own yourself or to know the 
sweetness that you may get out of your own nature 
and the exercise of your powers, if you desire to be 
able to govern the realm within, put yourself into 
God’s hands and say, ‘I am Thine; hold Thou me up, 
and I shall be safe.’ 

I need not say more than just a word about the 
other side of Paul’s confession of faith, ‘Whom I 
serve. He employs the word which means the service 
of a worshipper, or even of a priest, and not that 
which means the service of a slave. His purpose was 
to represent how, as his whole inward nature bowed 
in submission to, and was under the influence of, God 
to whom he belonged, so his whole outward life was a 
life of devotion. He was serving Him there in the 
ship, amidst the storm and the squalor and the terror. 
His calmness was service; his confidence was service; 
the cheery words that he was speaking to these people 
were service. And on his whole life he believed that 
this was stamped, that he was devoted to God. So 
there is the true idea of a Christian life, that in all its 
aspects, attitudes, and acts it is to be a manifestation, 
in visible form, of inward devotion to, and ownership 
by, God. All our work may be worship, and we may 
‘pray without ceasing, though no supplications come 
from our lips, if our hearts are in touch with Him 
and through our daily life we serve and honour Him. 
God’s priests never are far away from their altar, and 
never are without, somewhat to offer, as long as they 
have the activities of daily duty and the difficulties of 
daily conflict to bring to Him and spread before Him. 

II. So let me turn for a moment to some of the 
other aspects of these words to which I have already 


Teg 
> EC 
ame ee 


aA 


360 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (en. xxvm. 


referred. I find in them, next, the bold confession 
which true religion requires. 

Shipboard is a place where people find out one 
another very quickly. Character cannot well be hid 
there. And such circumstances as Paul had been in 
for the last fortnight, tossing up and down in Adria, 
with Death looking over the bulwarks of the crazy 
ship every moment, were certain to have brought out 
the inmost secrets of character. Paul durst not have 
said to these people ‘ the God whose I am and whom I 
serve’ if he had not known that he had been living day 
by day a consistent and godly life amongst them. 

And so, I note, first of all, that this confession of in- 
dividual and personal relationship to God is incumbent 
on every Christian. We do not need to be always 
brandishing it before people’s faces. Thereis very little 
fear of the average Christian of this day blundering 
on that side. But we need, still less, to be always 
hiding it away. One hears a great deal from certain 
quarters about a religion that does not need to be 
vocal but shows what it is, without the necessity for 
words. Blessed be God! there is such a religion, but 
you will generally find that the people who have most 
of it are the people who are least tongue-tied when 
opportunity arises; and that if they have been wit- 
nessing for God in their quiet discharge of duty, with 
their hands instead of their lips, they are quite as 
ready to witness with their lips when it is fitting that 
they should do so. And surely, surely, if a man 
belongs to God, and if his whole life is to be the 
manifestation of the ownership that he recognises, 
that which specially reveals him—viz., his own artic- 
ulate speech—cannot be left out of his methods of 
manifestation. 






* 


v.23] A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH 361 


Iam afraid that there are a great many professing 
Christian people nowadays who never, all their lives, 
have said to any one, ‘The God whose Iam and whom 
Iserve. And I beseech you, dear brethren, suffer this 
word of exhortation. To say so isa far more effectual, 
or at least more powerful, means of appeal than any 
direct invitation to share in the blessings. You may 
easily offend a man by saying to him, ‘ Won’t you be a 
Christian too?’ But it is hard to offend if you simply 
say that yow area Christian. The statement of per- 
sonal experience is more powerful by far than all 
argumentation or eloquence or pleading appeals. We 
do more when we say, ‘That which we have tasted 
and felt and handled of the Word of Life, declare we 
unto you, than by any other means. 

Only remember that the avowal must be backed up 
by a life, as Paul’s was backed up on board that vessel. 
For unless it is so, the profession does far more harm 
than good. There are always keen critics round us, 
especially if we say that we are Christians. There were 
keen critics on board that ship. Do you think that these 
Roman soldiers, and the other prisoners, would not 
have smiled contemptuously at Paul, if this had been 
the first time that they had any reason to suppose that 
he was at all different from them? They would have 
said, ‘The God whose you are and whom yow serve? 
Why, you are just the same sort of man as if you 
worshipped Jupiter like the rest of us!’ And that is 
what the world has a right to say to Christian people. 
The clearer our profession, the holier must be our 
~ lives. 

III. Last of all, I find in these words the calmness 
and security which true religion secures. 

The story, as I have already glanced at it in my 


"see 





362 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn. xxvu. 


introductory remarks, brings out very wonderfully 4 
and very beautifully Paul’s promptitude, his calmness 
in danger, his absolute certainty of safety, and his un- 
selfish thoughtfulness about his companions in peril. 
And all these things were the direct results of his 
entire surrender to God, and of the consistency of his 
daily life. It needed the angel in the vision to assure 
him that his life would be spared. But whether the 
angel had ever come or not, and though death had 
been close at his hand, the serenity and the peaceful 
assurance of safety which come out so beautifully in 
the story would have been there all the same. The 
man who can say ‘I belong to God’ does not need 
to trouble himself about dangers. He will have to 
exercise his common sense, as the Apostle shows us; 
he will have to use all the means that are in his power 
for the accomplishment of ends that he knows to be 
right and legitimate. But having done all that, he can 
say, ‘I belong to Him, it is His business to look after 
His own property. He is not going to hold His posses- 
sions with such a slack hand as that they shall slip 
between His fingers, and be lost in the mire. ‘Thou wilt 
not lose the souls that are Thine in the grave, neither 
wilt Thou suffer the man whom Thou lovest to see 
corruption. God keeps His treasures, and the surer 
we are that He is able to keep them unto that day, the 
calmer we may be in all our trouble. 

And the safety that followed was also the direct re- 
sult of the relationship of mutual possession and love 
established between God and the Apostle. We do not 
know to which of the two groups of the shipwrecked 
Paul belonged; whether he could swim or whether 
he had to hold on to some bit of floating wreckage or 
other, and so got ‘safe to land. But whichever way it 


v. 23] A TOTAL WRECK 363 


was, it was neither his swimming nor the spar to 
which, perhaps, he clung, that landed him safe on shore. 
It was the God to whom he belonged. Faith is the 
true lifebelt that keeps us from being drowned in 
any stormy sea. And if you and I feel that we are 
His, and live accordingly, we shall be calm amid all 
change, serene when others are troubled, ready to be 
helpers of others even when we ourselves are in dis- 
tress. And when the crash comes, and the ship goes to 
pieces: ‘so it will come to pass that, some on boards, 
and some on broken pieces of the ship, they all come 
safe to land, and when the Owner counts His subjects 
and possessions on the quiet shore, as the morning 
breaks, there will not be one who has been lost in the 
surges, or whose name will be unanswered to when 
the muster-roll of the crew is called. 


A TOTAL WRECK, ALL HANDS SAVED 


* And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down 
the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out 
of the foreship, 31. Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these 
abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. 32. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes 
of the boat, and let her fall off. 33. And while the day was coming on, Paul 
besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye 
have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. 34. Wherefore I pray 
you to take some meat; for this is for your health; for there shall not an hair 
fall from the head of any of you. 35. And when he had thus spoken, he took 
bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken 
it, he began to eat. 36. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some 
meat. 37. And we were in allin the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen 
souls. 38. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast 
out the wheat into the sea. 39. And when it was day, they knew not the land; 
but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were 
minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. 40. And when they had taken 
up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder- 
bands, and hoised up the main-sail to the wind, and made toward shore. 41. And 
falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground: and the fore 
part stuck fast, and remained unmoveable, but the hinder part was broken with 
the violence of the waves, 42. And the soldiers’ counsel was to kill the prisoners, 
lest any of them should swim out, and escape. 43. But the centurion, willing to 
save Paul, kept them from their purpose: and commanded that they which could 


364 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (es. xxvz. 


swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get toland; 44. And the rest, 
some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, And so ib came to pass, 
that they escaped all safe to land.’—AoTs xxvii. 30-44, 


THE Jews were not seafaring people. Their coast 
had no safe harbours, and they seldom ventured on 
the Mediterranean. To find Paul in a ship with its 
bow pointed westwards is significant. It tells of the 
expansion of Judaism into a world-wide religion, and 
of the future course of Christianity. The only Old 
Testament parallel is Jonah, and the dissimilarities 
of the two incidents are as instructive as are their 
resemblances. 

This minute narrative is evidently the work of 


one of the passengers who knew a good deal about 


nautical matters. It reads like a log-book. But as 
James Smith has well noted in his interesting mono- 
graph on the chapter, the writer's descriptions, though 
accurate, are unprofessional, thus confirming Luke’s 
authorship. Where had the ‘beloved physician’ learned 
so much about the sea and ships? Did the great 
galleys carry surgeons as now? At all events the 
story is one of the most graphic accounts ever written. 
This narrative begins when the doomed ship has cast 
anchor, with a rocky coast close under her lee. The 
one question is, Will the four anchors hold? No 
wonder that the passengers longed for daylight! 

The first point is the crew’s dastardly trick to save 
themselves, frustrated by Paul's insight and prompti- 
tude. The pretext for getting into the boat was 
specious. Anchoring by the bow as well as by the 
stern would help to keep the ship from driving ashore; 
and if once the crew were in the boat and pulled 
as far as was necessary to lay out the anchors, it 
would be easy, under cover of the darkness, to make 









vs. 30-44] A TOTAL WRECK 365 


good their escape on shore and leave the landsmen 
on board to shift for themselves. The boat must have 
been of considerable size to hold the crew of so large 
a ship. It was already lying alongside, and lands- 
men would not suspect what lay under the apparently 
brave attempt to add to the vessel's security, but 
Paul did so. His practical sagacity was as conspicuous 
a trait as his lofty enthusiasm. Common sense need 
not be divorced from high aims or from the intensest 
religious self-devotion. The idealist beat the practical 
centurion in penetrating the sailors’ scheme. 

That must have been a great nature which combined 
such different characteristics as the Apostle shows. 
Unselfish devotion is often wonderfully clear-sighted 
as to the workings of its opposite. The Apostle’s 
promptitude is as noticeable as his penetration. He 
wastes no time in remonstrance with the cowards, 
who would have been over the side and off in the 
dark while he talked, but goes straight to the man 
in authority. Note, too, that he keeps his place as 
a prisoner. It is not his business to suggest what is 
to be done. That might have been resented as pre- 
sumptuous; but he has a right to point out the danger, 
and he leaves the centurion to settle how to meet it. 
Significantly does he say ‘ye, not ‘we. He was 
perfectly certain that he ‘must be brought before 
Cesar’; and though he believed that all on board 
would escape, he seems to regard his own safety as 
even more certain than that of the others. 

The lesson often drawn from his words is rightly 
drawn. They imply the necessity of men’s action in 
order to carry out God’s purpose. The whole shipful 
are to be saved, but ‘except these abide . . . ye cannot 
be saved. The belief that God wills anything is a 





366 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ea. xxvu. 


reason for using all means to effect it, not for folding 
our hands and saying, ‘God will do it, whether we 
do anything or not.’ The line between fatalism and 
Christian reliance on God’s will is clearly drawn in 

Paul’s words. 

Note too the prompt, decisive action of the soldiers. 
They waste no words, nor do they try to secure the 
sailors, but out with their knives and cut the tow-rope, 
and away into the darkness drifts the boat. It might 
have been better to have kept it, as affording a chance 
of safety for all; but probably it was wisest to get rid 
of it at once. Many times in every life it is necessary 
to sacrifice possible advantages in order to secure a 
more necessary good. The boat has to be let go if the 
passengers in the ship are to be saved. Misused good 
things have sometimes to be given up in order to keep 
people from temptation. 

The next point brings Paul again to the front. In 
the night he had been the saviour of the whole ship- 
load of people. Now as the twilight is beginning, and 
the time for decisive action will soon be here with 
the day, he becomes their encourager and counsellor. 
Again his saving common sense is shown. He knew 
that the moment for intense struggle was at hand, 
and so he prepares them for it by getting them to 
eat a substantial breakfast. It was because of his 
faith that he did so. His religion did not lead him 
to do as some people would have done—begin to talk 
to the soldiers about their souls—but he looked after 
their bodies. Hungry, wet, sleepless, they were in no 
condition to scramble through the surf, and the first 
thing to be done was to get some food into them. 
Of course he does not mean that they had eaten 
absolutely nothing for a fortnight, but only that they 


vs.30-44) A TOTAL WRECK 367 


had had scanty nourishment. But Paul’s religion went 
harmoniously with his care for men’s bodies. He 
‘gave thanks to God in presence of them all’; and 
who shall say that that prayer did not touch hearts 
more deeply than religious talk would have done? 
Paul’s calmness would be contagious; and the root of 
it, in his belief in what his God had told him, would 
be impressively manifested to all on board. Moods 
are infectious; so ‘they were all of good cheer, and 
no doubt things looked less black after a hearty meal. 

A little point may be noticed here, namely, the 
naturalness of the insertion of the numbers on board 
at this precise place in the narrative. There would 
probably be a muster of all hands for the meal, and 
in view of the approaching scramble, in order that, 
if they got to shore, there might be certainty as to 
_whether any were lost. So here the numbers come in. 
They were still not without hope of saving the ship, 
though Paul had told them it would be lost; and so 
they jettison the cargo of wheat from Alexandria. 
By this time it is broad day and something must be 
done. 

The next point is the attempt to beach the vessel. 
‘They knew not the land, that is, the part of the 
coast where they had been driven; but they saw that, 
while for the most part it was iron-bound, there 
was a shelving sandy bay at one point on to which 
it might be possible to run her ashore. The Revised 
Version gives a much more accurate and seaman- 
like account than the Authorised Version does. The 
anchors were not taken on board, but to save time 
and trouble were ‘left in the sea, the cables being 
simply cut. The ‘rudder-bands’—that is, the lashings 
which had secured the two paddle-like rudders, one 





368 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ca. xxvu. 


on either beam, which had been tied up to be out of 
the way when the stern anchors were put out—are 
loosed, and the rudders drop into place. The foresail 
(not ‘mainsail,’ as the Authorised Version has it) is set 
to help to drive the ship ashore. It is alk exactly what 
we should expect to be done. 

But an unexpected difficulty met the attempt, which 
is explained by the lie of the coast at St. Paul’s Bay, 
Malta, as James Smith fully describes in his book. 
A little island, separated from the mainland by a 
channel of not more than one hundred yards in 
breadth, lies off the north-east point of the bay, and 
to a beholder at the entrance to the bay looks as if 
continuous with it. When the ship got farther in, 
they would see the narrow channel, through which 
a strong current sets and makes a considerable dis- 
turbance as it meets the run of the water in the bay. 
A bank of mud has been formed at the point of 
meeting. Thus not only the water shoals, but the 
force of the current through the narrows would hinder 
the ship from getting past it to the beach. The two 
things together made her ground, ‘stem on’ to the 
bank; and then, of course, the heavy sea running into 
the bay, instead of helping her to the shore, began to 
break up the stern which was turned towards it. 

Common peril makes beasts of prey and their usual 
victims crouch together. Benefits received touch 
generous hearts. But the legionaries on board had 
no such sentiments. Paul’s helpfulness was forgotten. 
A still more ignoble exhibition of the instinet of 
self-preservation than the sailors had shown dictated 
that cowardly, cruel suggestion to kill the prisoners. 
Brutal indifference to human life, and Rome’s iron 
discipline holding terror over the legionaries’ heads, 


vs. 30-44] A TOTAL WRECK 369 


are vividly illustrated in the ‘counsel.’ So were Paul's 
kindnesses requited! It is hard to melt rude natures 
even by kindness; and if Paul had been looking for 
gratitude he would have been disappointed, as we so 
often are. But if we do good to men because we 
expect requital, even in thankfulness, we are not pure 
in motive. ‘Looking for nothing again’ is the spirit 
enforced by God’s pattern and by experience. 

The centurion had throughout, like most of his 
fellows in Scripture, been kindly disposed, and showed 
more regard for Paul than the rank and file did. 
He displays the good side of militarism, while they 
show its bad side; for he is collected, keeps his head 
in extremities, knows his own mind, holds the reins in 
a firm hand, even in that supreme moment, has a 
quick eye to see what must be done, and decision to 
order it at once. It was prudent to send first those 
who could swim; they could then help the others. 
The distance was short, and as the bow was aground, 
there would be some shelter under the lee of the 
vessel, and shoal water, where they could wade, would 
be reached in a few minutes or moments. 

‘And so it came to pass, that they all escaped safe 
to the land.’ So Paul had assured them they would. 
God needs no miracles in order to sway human affairs. 
Everything here was perfectly ‘natural, and yet His 
hand wrought through all, and the issue was His 
fulfilment of His promises. If we rightly look at 
common things, we shall see God working in them 
all, and believe that He can deliver us as truly without 
miracles as ever He did any by miracles. Promptitude, 
prudence, skill, and struggle with the waves, saved 
the whole two hundred and seventy-six souls in that 
battered ship; yet it was God who saved them all. 

VOL, II. 2A 


370 


Whether Paul was among the party that could swim, 
or among the more helpless who had to cling to any- 
thing that would float, he was held up by God’s hand, 
and it was He who ‘sent from above, took him, and 
drew him out of many waters.’ 


AFTER THE WRECK 


‘And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called 
Melita. 2. And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness: for they 
kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because 
of the cold. 3. And when Paul had gathereda bundle of sticks, and laid them 
on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. 4 And 
when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on bis hand, they said among 
themselves, Nodoubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the 
sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. 5. And he shook off the beast into the 
fire, and felt no harm. 6. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or 
fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no 
harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. 7. In 
the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name 
was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously. 8. And it 
came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, and of a bloody 
flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and 
healed him. 9. So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the 
island, came, and were healed: 10. Who also honoured us with many honours; 
and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary. 11. 
And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had win- 
tered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. 12. And landing at Syracuse, 
we tarried there three days. 13. And from thence we fetched a compass, and 
came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the 
next day to Puteoli; 14. Where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry 
with them seven days: and so we went toward Rome. 15, And from thence, 
when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, 
and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took 
courage. 16. And when we came to,Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners 
to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a 
soldier that kept him.’—ActTs xxviii. 1-16. 


‘THEY all escaped safe to land, says Luke with 
emphasis, pointing to the verification of Paul’s assur- 
ance that there should be no loss of life. That two 
hundred and seventy-six men on a wreck should all be 
saved was very improbable, but the angel had promised, 
and Paul had believed that it should be ‘even so as it 
had been spoken unto him.’ Therefore the improbable 
came to pass, and every man of the ship’s company 





vs. 1-16] AFTER THE WRECK 371 


stood safe on the shore. Faith which grasps God’s 
promise ‘laughs at impossibilities’ and brings them 
into the region of facts. 

Wet, cold, weary, and anxious, the rescued men 
huddled together on the shore in the early morning, and 
no doubt they were doubtful what reception they would 
have from the islanders who had been attracted to the 
beach. Their first question was, ‘Where are we?’ so 
completely had they lost their reckoning. Some of the 
inhabitants could speak Greek or Latin, and could tell 
them that they were on Melita, but the most part of 
the crowd that came round them could only speak in a 
tongue strange to Luke, and are therefore called by 
him ‘barbarians,’ not as being uncivilised, but as not 
speaking Greek. _ But they could speak the eloquent 
language of kindness and pity. They were heathens, 
but they were men. They had not come down to the 
wreck for plunder, as might have been feared, but to 
help the unfortunates who were shivering on the beach 
in the downpour of rain, and chilled to the bone by 
exposure. 

As always, Paul fills Luke’s canvas; the other two 
hundred and seventy-five were ciphers. Two incidents, 
in which the Apostle appears as protected by God from 
danger, and as a fountain of healing for others, are all 
that is told of the three months’ stay in Malta. Taken 
together, these cover the whole ground of the 
Christian’s place in the world; he is an object of 
divine care, he is a medium of divine blessing. In the 
former one, we see in Paul's activity in gathering his 
bundle of brushwood an example of how he took the 
humblest duties on himself, and was not hindered 
either by the false sense of dignity which keeps smaller 
men from doing small things, as Chinese gentlemen 


372 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cu. xxvut. 


pride themselves on long nails as a token that they do 
no work, or by the helplessness in practical matters 
which is sometimes natural to, and often affected by, 
men of genius, from taking his share in common 
duties. 

The shipwreck took place in November probably, 
and the ‘ viper’ had curled itself up for its winter sleep, 
and had been lifted with the twigs by Paul's hasty 
hand. Roused by the warmth, it darted at Paul's 
hand before it could be withdrawn, and fixed its fangs. — 
The sight of it dangling there excited suspicions in the 
mind of the natives, who would know that Paul was a 
prisoner, and so jumped to the conclusion that he was 
a murderer pursued by the Goddess of Justice. These 
rude islanders had consciences, which bore witness to a 
divine law of retribution. 

However mistaken may be heathens’ conceptions of 
what constitutes right and wrong, they all know that 
it is wrong to do wrong, and the dim anticipation of 
God-inflicted punishment is in their hearts. The swift 
change of opinion about Paul is like, though it is the 
reverse of, what the people of Lystra thought of him. 
They first took him for a god, and then for a criminal, 
worshipping him to-day and stoning him to-morrow. 
This teaches us how unworthy the heathen conception 
of a deity is, and how lightly the name was given. It 
may teach us too how fickle and easily led popular 
judgments are, and how they are ever prone to rush 
from one extreme to another, so that the people’s idol 
of one week is their abhorrence the next, and the 
applause and execration are equally undeserved. 
These Maltese critics did what many of us are doing 
with less excuse—arguing as to men’s merits from 
their calamities or successes. A good man may be 


vs. 1-16] AFTER THE WRECK 373 


stung by a serpent in the act of doing a good thing; 
that does not prove him to be a monster. He may be 
unhurt by what seems fatal; that does not prove him 
to be a god or a saint. 

The other incident recorded as occurring in Malta 
brings out the Christian’s relation to others as a 
source of healing. An interesting incidental proof 
of Luke’s accuracy is found in the fact that inscrip- 
tions discovered in Malta show that the official 
title of the governor was ‘First of the Melitzans,’ 
The word here rendered ‘chief’ is literally ‘first,’ 
Luke’s precision is shown in another direction in his 
diagnosis of the diseases of Publius’s father, which 
are described by technical medical terms. The heal- 
ing seems to have been unasked. Paul ‘went in,’ 
as if from a spontaneous wish to render help. There 
is no record of any expectation or request from 
Publius. 

Christians are to be ‘like the dew on the grass, 
which waiteth not for man, but falls unsought. The 
manner of the healing brings out very clearly its divine 
source, and Paul’s part as being simply that of the 
channel for God’s power. He prays, and then lays his 
hands on the sick man. There are no words assuring 
him of healing. God is invoked, and then His power 
flows through the hands of the suppliant. So with all 
our work for men in bringing the better cure with 
which we are entrusted, we are but channels of the 
blessing, pipes through which the water of life is 
brought to thirsty lips. Therefore prayer must precede 
and accompany all Christian efforts to communicate 
the healing of the Gospel; and the most gifted are but, 
like Paul, ‘ministers through whom’ faith and salva- 
tion come, 


a ty ’ 
{ 7 


374 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [cn.xxvim. 


The argument from silence is precarious, but the 
entire omission of notice of evangelistic work in Melita 
is noteworthy. Probably the Apostle as a prisoner 
was not free to preach Christ in any public manner. 

Ancient navigation was conducted in a leisurely 
fashion very strange to us. Three months’ delay in 
the island, rendered necessary by wintry storms, would 
end about the early part of March, when the season for 
safe sailing began. So the third ship which was used 
in this voyage set sail. Luke notices its ‘sign’ as being 
that of the Twin Brethren, the patrons of sailors, 
whose images were, no doubt, displayed on the bow, 
just as to-day boats in that region often have a 
Madonna nailed on the mast. Strange conjunction— 
Castor and Pollux on the prow, and Paul on the deck! 

Puteoli, on the bay of Naples, was the landing-place, 
. and there, after long confinement with uncongenial 
companions, the three Christians, Paul, Aristarchus, 
and Luke, found brethren. We can understand the joy 
of such a meeting, and can almost hear the narrative 
of perils which would be poured into sympathetic ears. 
Observe that, according to what seems the true read- 
ing, verse 14 says, ‘We were consoled among them, 
remaining seven days. The centurion could scarcely 
delay his march to please the Christians at Puteoli; 
and the thought that the Apostle, whose spirit had 
never flagged while danger was near and effort was 
needed, felt some tendency to collapse, and required 
cheering when the strain was off, is as natural as it is 
pathetic. 

So the whole company set off on their march to 
Rome—about a hundred and forty miles. The week’s 
delay in Puteoli would give time for apprising the 
church in Rome of the Apostle’s coming, and two 


vs. 1-16] AFTER THE WRECK 375 


parties came out to meet him, one travelling as far as 
Appii Forum, about forty Roman miles from the city ; 
the other as far as ‘ The Three Taverns, some ten miles 
nearer it. The simple notice of the meeting is more 
touching than many words would have been. It 
brings out again the Apostle’s somewhat depressed 
state, partly due, no doubt, to nervous tension during 
the long and hazardous voyage, and partly to his 
consciousness that the decisive moment was very near. 
But when he grasped the hands and looked into the 
faces of the Roman brethren, whom he had so long 
hungered to see, and to whom he had poured out his 
heart in his letter, he ‘thanked God, and took courage.’ 
The most heroic need, and are helped by, the sympathy 
of the humble. Luther was braced for the Diet of 
Worms by the knight who clapped him on the back 
as he passed in and spoke a hearty word of cheer. 

There would be some old friends in the delegation of 
Roman Christians, perhaps some of those who are 
named in Romans xvi., such as Priscilla and Aquila, 
and the unnamed matron, Rufus’s mother, whom Paul 
there calls ‘his mother and mine. It would be an hour 
of love and effusion, and the shadow of appearing 
before Cesar would not sensibly dim the brightness. 
Paul saw God’s hand in that glad meeting, as we should 
do in all the sweetness of congenial intercourse. It was 
not only because the welcomers were his friends that he 
was glad, but because they were Christ’s friends and 
servants. The Apostle saw in them the evidence that 
the kingdom was advancing even in the world’s capital, 
and under the shadow of Czsar’s throne, and that 
gladdened him and made him forget personal anxieties, 
We too should be willing to sink our own interests in 
the joy of seeing the spread of Christ’s kingdom. 


a; 


876 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ox. xxvim. 


Paul turned thankfulness for the past and the 
present into calm hope for the future: ‘He took 
courage. There was much to discourage and to 
excuse tremors and forebodings, but he had God and 
Christ with him, and therefore he could front the un- 
certain future without flinching, and leave all its 
possibilities in God’s hands. Those who have such a 
past as every Christian has should put fear far from 
them, and go forth to meet any future with quiet 
hearts, and minds kept in perfect peace because they 
are stayed on God. 


THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL 


* And it came to pass, that, after three days, Paul called the chief of the Jews 
together: and when they were come together, he said unto them, Men and 
brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people or customs of our 
fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the 
Romans; 18. Who, when they had examined me, would have let me go, because 
there was no cause of deathin me. 19. But when the Jews spake against it, I was 
constrained to appeal unto Cesar; not that I had ought to accuse my nation of. 
20. For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with 
you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. 21. And 
they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judea concerning thee, 
neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee. 22. But 
we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we 
know that everywhere it is spoken against. 23. And when they had appointed 
him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and 
testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the 
law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. 24, And some 
believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. 25. And when 
they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one 
word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Hsias the prophet unto our fathers, 26. 
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not under- 
stand ; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: 27. For the heart of this people 
is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they 
closed ; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under- 
stand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 28. Be 
it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, 
and that they will hearit. 29. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, 
and had great reasoning among themselves. 30. And Paul dwelt two whole years 
in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching 
the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus 
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.’—AorTs xxviii. 17-31. 


WE have here our last certain glimpse of Paul. His 
ambition had long been to preach in Rome, but he 


vs. 17-31] THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL 377 


little knew how his desire was to be fulfilled. We too 
are often surprised at the shape which God's answers to 
our wishes take. Well for us if we take the unexpected 
or painful events which accomplish some long-cherished 
purpose as cheerfully and boldly as did Paul. We 
see him in this last glimpse as the centre of three 
concentric widening circles. 

I. We have Paul and the leaders of the Roman 
synagogue. He was not the man to let the grass grow 
under his feet. After such a voyage a pause would 
have been natural for a less eager worker; but three 
days were all that he allowed himself, and these would, 
no doubt, be largely occupied by intercourse with the 
Roman Christians, and with the multitude of litile 
things to be looked after on entering on his new 
lodging. Paul had gifts that we have not, he exem- 
plified many heroic virtues which we are not called on 
to repeat; but he had eminently the prosaic virtue of 
diligence and persistence in work, and the humblest 
life affords a sphere in which that indispensable 
though homely excellence of his can be imitated. 
What a long holiday some of us would think we had 
earned, if we had come through what Paul had en- 
countered since he left Czsarea! 

The summoning of the ‘chief of the Jews’ to him 
was a prudent preparation for his trial rather than 
an evangelistic effort. It was important to ascertain 
their feelings, and if possible to secure their neutrality 
in regard to the approaching investigation. Hence the 
Apostle seeks to put his case to them so as to show his 
true adherence to the central principles of Judaism, 
insisting that he is guiltless of revolt against either 
the nation or the law and traditional observances; 
that he had been found innocent by the Palestinian 


378 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [on. xxvin. 


representatives of Roman authority; that his appeal 
to Czsar, which would naturally seem hostile to the 


rulers in Jerusalem, was not meant as an accusation 


of the nation to which he felt himself to belong, and 
so was no sign of deficient patriotism, but had been 
forced on him as his only means of saving his life. 

It was a difficult course which he had to steer, and 
he picked his way between the shoals with marvellous 
address. But his explanation of his position is not 
only a skilful piece of apologia, but it embodies one of 
his strongest convictions, which it is worth our while 
to grasp firmly; namely, that Christianity is the true 
fulfilment and perfecting of the old revelation. His 
declaration that, so far from his being a deserter from 
Israel, he was a prisoner just because he was true to 
the Messianic hope which was Israel’s highest glory, 
was not a clever piece of special pleading meant for 
the convincing of the Roman Jews, but was a prin- 
ciple which runs through all his teaching. Christians 
were the true Jews. He was not a recreant in con- 
fessing, but they were deserters in denying, the fulfil- 
ment in Jesus of the hope which had shone before the 
generation of ‘the fathers. The chain which bound 
him to the legionary who ‘kept him,’ and which he 
held forth as he spoke, was the witness that he was 
still ‘an Hebrew of the Hebrews.’ 

The heads of the Roman synagogue went on the tack 
of non-committal, as was quite natural. They were 
much too astute to accept at once an ex parte state- 
ment, and so took refuge in professing ignorance. 
Probably they knew a good deal more than they 
owned. Their statement has been called ‘ unhistorical,’ 
and, oddly enough, has been used to discredit Luke’s 
narrative. It is a remarkable canon of criticism that 


ys.17-31] THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL 379 


a reporter is responsible for the truthfulness of asser- 
tions which he reports, and that, if he has occasion to 
report truthfully an untruth, he is convicted of the 
untruth which he truthfully reports. Luke is respon- 
sible for telling what these people found it convenient 
to say; they are responsible for its veracity. But they 
did not say quite as much as is sometimes supposed. 
As the Revised Version shows, they simply said that 
they had not had any official deputation or report 
about Paul, which is perfectly probable, as it was 
extremely unlikely that any ship leaving after Paul’s 
could have reached Italy. They may have known a 
great deal about him, but they had no information to 
act upon about his trial. Their reply is plainly shaped 
so as to avoid expressing any definite opinion or 
pledging themselves to any course of action till they 
do hear from ‘home.’ 

They are politely cautious, but ‘ae eannot help 
letting out some of their bile in their reference to 
‘this sect.. Paul had said nothing about it, and their 
allusion betrays a fuller knowledge of him and it than 
it suited their plea for delay to own. Their wish to 
hear what he thought sounded very innocent and 
impartial, but was scarcely the voice of candid seekers 
after truth. They must have known of the existence 
of the Roman Church, which included many Jews, and 
they could scarcely be ignorant of the beliefs on which 
it was founded; but they probably thought that they 
would hear enough from Paul in the proposed con- 
ference to enable them to carry the synagogue witk 
them in doing all they could to procure his condemna- 
tion. He had hoped to secure at least their neutrality ; 
they seem to have been preparing to join his enemies. 
The request for full exposition of a prisoner’s belief 


380 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cu. xxvm. 


has often been but a trap to ensure his martyrdom. 
But we have to ‘be ready to give to every man a reason 
for the hope that is in us, even when the motive for 
asking it may be anything but the sincere desire to 
learn. 

II. Therefore Paul was willing to lay his heart's 
belief open, whatever doing so might bring. So the 
second circle forms round him, and we have him 
preaching the Gospel to‘ many’ of the Jews. He could 
not go to the synagogue, so much of the synagogue 
came to him. The usual method was pursued by Paul 
in arguing from the old revelation, but we may note 
the twofold manner of his preaching, ‘ testifying’ and 
‘persuading, the former addressed more to the under- 
standing, and the latter to the affections and will, and 
may learn how Christian teachers should seek to blend 
both—to work their arguments, not in frost, but in 
fire, and not to bully or scold or frighten men into the 
Kingdom, but to draw them with cords of love. Per- 
suasion without a basis of solid reasoning is puerile 
and impotent; reasoning without the warmth of per- 
suasion is icy cold, and therefore nothing grows 
from it. 

Note too the protracted labour ‘from morning till ~ 
evening. One can almost see the eager disputants 
spending the livelong day over the rolls of the 
prophets, relays of Rabbis, perhaps, relieving one 
another in the assault on the one opponent's position, 
and he holding his ground through all the hours—a 
pattern for us teachers of all degrees. 

The usual effects followed. The multitude was sifted 
by the Gospel, as its hearers always are, some accept- 
ing and some rejecting. These double effects ever 
follow it, and to one or other of these two classes we 


vs.17-31] THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL 881 


each belong. The same fire melts wax and hardens 
clay; the same light is joy to sound eyes and agony to 
diseased ones; the same word is a savour of life unto 
life and a savour of death unto death; the same Christ 
is set for the fall and for the rising of men, and is to 
some the sure foundation on which they build secure, 
and to some the stone on which, stumbling, they are 
broken, and which, falling on them, grinds them to 
powder. 

Paul’s solemn farewell takes up Isaiah’s words, 
already used by Jesus. It is his last recorded utter- 
ance to his brethren after the flesh, weighty, and full 
of repressed yearning and sorrow. It is heavy with 
prophecy, and marks an epoch in the sad, strange 
history of that strange nation. Israel passes out of 
sight with that dread sentence fastened to its breast, 
like criminals of old, on whose front was fixed the 
record of their crimes and their condemnation. So 
this tragic self-exclusion from hope and life is the end 
of all that wondrous history of ages of divine revela- 
tion and patience, and of man’s rebellion. The Gospel 
passes to the Gentiles, and the Jew shuts himself out. 
So it has been for nineteen centuries. Was not that 
scene in Paul's lodging in Rome the end of an epoch 
and the prediction of a sad future ? 

IH. Not less significant and epoch-making is the 
glimpse of Paul which closes the Acts. We have the 
third concentric circle—Paul and the multitudes who 
came to his house and heard the Gospel. We note two 
points here. First, that his unhindered preaching in 
the very heart of the world’s capital for two whole 
years is, in one aspect, the completion of the book. As 
Bengel tersely says, ‘The victory of the word of God, 
Paulat Rome. The apex of the Gospel, the end of Acts.’ 


382 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (ce. xxvm. 


But, second, as clearly, the ending is abrupt, and is 


not a satisfying close. The lengthened account of the © 


whole process of Paul’s imprisonments and hearings 
before the various Roman authorities is most unin- 
telligible if Luke intended to break off at the very 


crucial point, and say nothing about the event to. 


which he had been leading up for so many chapters. 
There is much probability in Ramsay’s suggestion that 
Luke intended to write a third book, containing the 
account of the trial and subsequent events, but was 
prevented by causes unknown, perhaps by martyrdom. 
Be that as it may, these two verses, with some informa- 
tion pieced out of the Epistles written during the 
imprisonment, are all that we know of Paul’s life in 
Rome. From Philippians we learn that the Gospel 
spread by reason of the earlier stages of his trial. 
From the other Epistles we can collect some particulars 
of his companions, and of the oversight which he kept 
up of the Churches. 

The picture here drawn lays hold, not on anything 
connected with his trial, but on his evangelistic acti- 


vity, and shows us how, notwithstanding all hindrances, 


anxieties about his fate, weariness, and past toils, the 
flame of evangelistic fervour burned undimmed in 
‘Paul the aged, as the flame of mistaken zeal had 
burned in the ‘young man named Saul,’ and how the 
work which had filled so many years of wandering 
and homelessness was carried on with all the old joy- 


fulness, confidence, and success, from the prisoner's 


lodging. In such unexpected fashion did God fulfil the 


Apostle’s desire to ‘preach the Gospel to you that are — 


at Rome also.’ To preach the word with all boldness 
is the duty of us Christians who have entered into the 
heritage of fuller freedom than Paul's, and of whom 





vs, 30, 31] PAUL IN ROME 383 


it is truer than of him that we can do it, ‘no man 
forbidding’ us. 


PAUL IN ROME 


And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that 
camein unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things 
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding 
him.’—ActTs xxviii. 30, 31. 


So ends this book. It stops rather than ends. Many 
reasons might be suggested for closing here. Probably 
the simplest is the best, that nothing more is said for 
nothing more had yet been done. Probably the book 
was written during these two years. This abrupt close 
suggests several noteworthy thoughts. 

I. The true theme of the book. 

How convenient if Luke had told us a little more! 
But Paul’s history is unfinished, like Peter’s and John’s. 
This book’s treatment of all the Apostles teaches, as 
we have often had to remark, that Christ and His 
acts are its true subject. 

We are wise if we learn the lesson of keeping all 
human teachers, even a Paul, in their inferior place, 
and if we say of each of them: ‘He was not the 
Light, but came that he might bear witness of .the 
Light.’ 

II. God’s unexpected and unwelcome ways of ful- 
filling our desires, and His purposes. 

It had long been Paul’s dream to ‘see Rome.’ How 
little he knew the steps by which his dream was to be 
fulfilled! He told the Ephesian elders that he was 
going up to Jerusalem under compulsion of the Spirit, 
and ‘not knowing the things that should befall him 
there, except that he was certain of ‘bonds and 
imprisonment. He did not know that these were 


384 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES [ca. xxvumt. 


God’s way of bringing him to Rome. Jewish fury, 
Roman statecraft and law-abidingness, two years of a 
prison, a stormy voyage, a shipwreck, led him to his 
long-wished-for goal. God uses even man’s malice and 
opposition to the Gospel to advance the progress of the 
Gospel. Men, like coral insects, build their little bit, 
all unaware of the whole of which it is a part, but the 
reef rises above the waves and ocean breaks against it 
in vain. 

So we may gather lessons of submission, of patient 
acceptance of apparently adverse circumstances, and of — 
quiet faith that He who ‘makes stormy winds to fulfil 
His word and flaming fires His ministers,’ will bend to 
the carrying out of His designs all things, be they 
seemingly friendly or hostile, and will realise our 
dreams, if in accordance with His will, even through 
events which seem to shatter them. Let us trust and 
be patient till we see the issues of events. 

III. The world’s mistaken estimate of greatness. 

Who was the greatest man in Rome at that hour? 
Not the Cesar but the poor Jewish prisoner. How 
astonished both would have been if they had been told 
the truth! The two kingdoms were, so to speak, set 
face to face in these two, their representatives, and 
neither of them knew his own relative importance. The 
Ceesar was all unaware that, for all his legions and his 
power, he was but ‘a noise’; Paul was as unconscious 
that he was incomparably the most powerful of the 
influences that were then at work in the world. The 
haughty and stolid eyes of Romans saw in him nothing 
but a prisoner, sent up from a turbulent subject land 
on some obscure charge, a mere nobody. The crowds 
in forum and amphitheatre would have laughed at any 
one who had pointed to that humble ‘ hired house,’ and 


vs. 30, 31] PAUL IN ROME 385 


said, ‘ There lodges a man who bears a word that will 
shatter and remould the city, the Empire, the world.’ 

Let us have confidence in the greatness of the 
word, though the world may be deaf to its music and 
blind to its power, and let us never fear to ally our- 
selves with a cause which we know to be God’s, 
however it may be unpopular and made light of by the 
‘leaders of opinion.’ 

IV. The true relation between the Church and the 
State. 

‘None forbidding him’ marks a great step forward. 
Paul’s unhindered freedom of speech in Rome itself 
marks ‘the victory of the word, the apex of the 
Gospel.’ The neutral attitude of the imperial power 
was, indeed, broken by subsequent persecutions, but 
we may say that on the whole Rome let Christianity 
alone. That is the best service that the State can 
render to the Church. Anything more is help which 
encumbers and is harmful to the true spiritual power 
of the Gospel. The real requirement which it makes 
on the civil power is simply what the Greek philoso- 
pher asked of the king who was proffering his good 
offices, ‘Stand out of the sunshine)’ 


VOL. It. 2B 














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